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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[–] Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

A) do what you enjoy the most, that will lead to you making the most money. You can be a lawyer who hates it and you'll make less than money than a barber who loves being a barber. The latter will be happy motivated creative eventually stsrt their own barber shop etc. The miserable lawyer will take a salary job find the easiest job possible, be making a mediocre salary forever. Yes, a lawyer has a much higher floor, the cheapest lawyer is still making like $60K a year, versus the cheapest barber making minimum wage, but again if you really like what you're doing you'll be motivated and happy and move up in the profession.

B) it's normal to be scared because a lot will change in software industry because of AI -- still, a hundred years after the invention of the car we still have tons of car mechanics, and we still have lots of people working in auto manufacturing. Think about how much technology robotics and even AI too has changed the automobile industry. Yes, a professional mechanic in 2026 has to be proficient on computers in a way that didn't exist two decades ago because of all the computerized diagnostics, but we still need mechanics. And a lot of car work is basic stuff people used to do for themselves, changing the oil changing bulbs -- in other words the technology made the consumers rely more on professionals for help, even if it's doing stuff that fifty years mechanics didn't bother with because back then everyone just changed their own oil.

So yeah, do what you love, and computer science is a perfectly reasonable economic choice, even if right now software hiring is very slow. (That's more of a function of the financial health of major software companies than anything to do with the underlying value software devs bring to the market.)