this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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My Parent doesn't want me doing CS, or CE, because they feel the job market will disappear come 7 years. (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by aunchers@lemmy.world to c/cs_career_questions@programming.dev
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Basically Title.
I love CS, I love designing systems, programming, some cyber and math.
The problem is, I am due to admit into CS this year (4 year program). My Parent's will be funding a majority of it (~2 years, + RESP). And one of my parents, thinks CS won't have many jobs come 7 years?
Why? Because AI will take them all (or is more likely to take them all). That AI is expanding at a rapid pace, and they will slowly but surely take the hardware designing jobs, the programming jobs, and pretty much all the jobs except the administration ones. I have a poor time putting into words what I would like to do in the future (cause I love lots of things related to CS) but I say thing a bit on the technical side, and this parent says that if I cant explain it to them than I don't understand it and that they understand (more to me) what will happen to the market due to their age

I am not saying they're wrong to any of this by the way, I'm just looking for advice on if they're right, and if not, why?

I don't think I'll ever give up doing CS because its something I love with all my heart.
But if I'm not able to convince them, they want me to take a gap and get a different degree (in a less likely to be taken job).
I might be rambling here, but I am genuinely soooo lost.

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[โ€“] gramie@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wow, that sounds completely different from my experience of CS (at a Canadian university). I had courses in data structures, networking, and operating systems, and programming was something we learned on our own to explore those subjects. Think of sorting and searching algorithms, compression techniques, discrete algebra, and OS scheduling strategies.

I met students who had very poor programming abilities, but were successful at understanding the how and why.

To learn programming as a skill, I would instead go to a community college.

[โ€“] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I had courses in data structures, networking, and operating systems, and programming was something we learned on our own to explore those subjects. Think of sorting and searching algorithms, compression techniques, discrete algebra, and OS scheduling strategies.

Yeah but, the way you actually learn that stuff beyond a memorize-for-exam level is by writing programs that implement it. Aren't programming assignments the thing you spend the most time on, the part that is actually difficult, and what most of your grade is based on? It definitely was for me, aside from the more pure math classes, and honestly I see it as by far the more important part, because what is the point of such an education other than gaining abilities to produce and understand software on a deeper level? This was in the US in the 2000's.

I met students who had very poor programming abilities, but were successful at understanding the how and why.

I met students who had poor programming abilities who ended up switching majors (or just cheating their way through) because that meant they couldn't pass the classes.

To learn programming as a skill, I would instead go to a community college.

Strange advice if you didn't go to one, but I can't speak on this either. Not learning the more foundational stuff seems like a possible drawback, and I'd count that as part of programming skill, even if many jobs won't make use of it directly.