In high school and middle school, it seemed like technology was a foolproof job. Tens of thousands of people were flocking to computer science to take advantage of a seemingly boundless field
that was allowing graduates to be paid six-figures right out the gates. Bonus points if you were able to land a job at some major tech company that offered fun and specialized benefits.
Now, its 2025. Many technology leaders tout AI as the end of programmers and software engineers. The field is oversaturated with workers and not enough jobs. Even those experienced seem to have a hard
time finding and retaining a job. For myself, this is my second degree kind of. I had finished my B.A. in Psychology just to realize that maybe I want do want to do something more STEM aligned. And I chose computer science. Am I a fool?
Frankly, I am not a fortune teller.
At the end of the day, even with the current oversaturation of CS graduates, I think that software is always going to need people to handle it. Even as AI makes software more accessible, you are still going to need people who have a deeper, fundamental understanding of whats going on beneath the hood to manage things. Furthermore, I don’t view computer programmers as some type of unicorn. Its not that there aren’t brilliant computer scientists/programmers, but rather there are so many people in the field that I imagine a lot of the work some of these people do are not very “high-level” and are more privy to lower-level, simpler projects.
I don’t mean that insultingly, but I do think it means that the pay of a programmer is going to vary much more widely now. Its not some free ticket anymore, and to really reap the benefits of the technology field you are going to have to outperform others. TLDR I think whats going on now is just a bubble bursting. Bad timing, sure. But by no means the end of anything.
Doom and gloom aside, I think software engineering in its own right has many redeeming qualities that make it a great skill to learn.
Despite what some artists might have to say about tech-nerds, programming really is a creative endeavor. Like other forms of engineering, a problem can likely be solved in various ways and programming lends itself no differently. However, I’d say programming takes it a step further than other engineering disciplines in that the applications to which it can be applied to are vastly varied. As an example we could consider more familiar issues like with networking, or speed/memory optimization all within the realms of computing but also look at issues like data management, customer service, music and image quality, special FX, graphics, and also more smaller scale personal software for devices you have at home. I think overall its a very flexible skill to have, and can be useful even if you aren’t doing it as your job.
Well, it almost feels like I have no choice. Its the technology of my time. Admittedly, I too am pretty impressed with it even with its quirks and biases. This is something I think might lose its flavor once it really is understood better by the masses, but I still think the potential applications for it are too great to ignore.
Like when I was mentioning creative aspects of software. You can also use software as a creative tool in itself and make all sorts of movies and art that follow some of the principles of regular art. Of course its not exactly the same, but its still a way to deliver differernt forms of media to users.
This is related a bit to AI, but I wanted to include it here anyway. I like psychology so I think using computer science as a tool to represent and understand the human mind is an intersting approach and I would like to learn more if I can.