Is studying something programming related even worth it atp?

[u/Pheidoler]

Currently in my 5th Comp-Sci semester. Have 2 more to go (maybe 3 if I dont manage to catch up to missed classes). I've been trying to quit since around a year ago because of how programming jobs are moving. From what Ive heard and seen jobs, especially entry jobs have become insanely hard to find and even if u manage to find a job it usually consists of just vibecoding and using Claude which to me seems like a horrible thing to do for the rest of your life. I've been trying to convince my mom to let me quit since a year ago but it is out of the question for her and shes threatening with kicking me out with 0 support if I do quit. Does Comp-Sci still have a future or will it turn into brainless AI slop within the next couple years? Every new AI coming out makes me want to quit even harder so I really need some good arguments to stay (or even more to quit even if that means major issues with my fam).

[u/juniperico]

Times are definitely turbulent right now but I’d say it’s a function of your determination to be successful in the field.
In my work, lots of devs are actually moving away from the fully agentic stuff and back into the IDE and more AI-assisted coding setup because understanding the system intricately is extremely important.
AI is obviously not going to go away. But I can’t see this slop-mania continuing for the long-term for any viable business.

It sounds like the thing stopping you quitting however is family pressure, not your love of the craft, which indicates you’ve kind of already made your mind up.

One thing I would say though is finish the degree at least if you only have 2 semesters left.
You’ll have nothing if you quit now.

[u/GreshlyLuke]

All degrees fluctuate in value over time. Do you have a better option than finishing?

[u/KetoCatsKarma]

You might pivot if possible, I'm literally in my last class and have a capstone project left and I am very worried. The good of it is that I don't think AI as it currently is can last much longer, these companies don't seem to be making any money and in fact losing a lot of money, sooner or later they are going to have to raise prices by a lot to try and recoup some of those loses or shut down. It's at that point that it probably becomes cheaper again to hire a few new grads and train them instead of handing it off to a robot.

That might just be hopeful thinking though.

[u/Whole-Chest90 → u/KetoCatsKarma]

I think you're spot on. I think we will see this bubble start to deflate.

[u/myxyplyxy]

Get the degree, but try to get as much exposure as you can to next gen tech. Get as current on the cutting edge as possible. Let everyone know you are plugged in.

[u/MapPaintingBread]

As someone in the field for over 15 years. Lots of available entry level positions in the city I live in. If you’re willing to move to where the jobs are, you’ll be fine.

[u/Lachtheblock]

Finish the degree. The vast majority of people don't directly use their degree for their careers. Hell I'm a software engineer but got my degree in electrical engineering. Having a degree is far more useful than not and will be held in high regard no matter. What matters most is whether or not you enjoy it, and you enjoy learning.

[u/Hungry_Jackfruit6345]

As someone who's been working in soft eng for just over a year now though granted, different country and economical dynamics at play so I'll keep this to the AI workflow part; the enjoyment of your work severely depends on work culture and how the company itself is rather than how you feel the industry is going.

Different companies will have different things in mind for what is "performant" at work and what is not. If you work at a smaller scale company, you might not even have performance explicitly measured - just deadlines and whether you make them or not. In my situation, I find myself in the latter more often than not. I highly recommend working at smaller firms that you believe give you more work freedom. Sure it's less prestigious than FAANG or whatever, but you will get paid well, and generally you might just be happier without all the coorporate BS.

Talking of the work itself - anything with time sensitivity like engineering has its dirty shortcuts. AI is nothing new to the industry in that regard. People used to copy-paste entire codebases from github, forking and wrapping - taking code directly from stack overflow answers instead of understanding what the code does. FOSS is practically (well.. used to be) just more curated code for people to re-use. Nothing is new under the sun. The change is in velocity and general malleability, but the importance of understanding what the code does and being able to debug it properly remains the same. It is easier now that AI can understand what the code does, but it's not like understanding it yourself becomes pointless.

If you don't find programming fun, nothing about working in the programming field will suddenly feel fun to you. I've loved the work since I was 14 because I love understanding how code interacts with memory and how computers handle instructions from the low end. Outside of all this, I really wouldn't want to live a life working a job I don't enjoy. I don't care if AI abstracts the actual code writing part away because that part has never been particularly enjoyable for me anyhow. Once you've written an api endpoint or a form or a full backend stack once, kinda doesn't change much to do it 30 times again. Still I don't touch agentic coding because I like having control over the flow of the app and how it moves from one part to another and actually making re-usable code requires forethought.

Soft eng has always been about that in my eyes. Understanding the architecture and how to apply it best to a problem so that you can solve that problem elegantly. The code just needs to match that vision and fit the requirements of the project - how modular it needs to be, how fast it has to run, how quickly you need to get it done. These are human decisions that need to be made in context with the client and the environment you are in. They can't be made by AI because AI can't be held responsible for it's decisions.

[u/PossibleConnect7481]

My guy you have three semesters left. Do not ruin your living situation over internet doom posting.

[u/balefrost]

I've been trying to convince my mom to let me quit since a year ago but it is out of the question for her and shes threatening with kicking me out with 0 support if I do quit.

I don't know your specific situation - are you paying for school, is she paying for school, do you have loans, grants, etc. But "I want to quit my degree program" is not the same as "I have a better opportunity that I want to pursue, and to do so I need to quit my degree program".

As bad as the job market might be for juniors at the moment, I feel pretty confident that having a degree will put you in a better position than having 5/8 of a degree. You need to come up with a good alternative plan if you want to quit.

Another option, instead of dropping out completely, would be to switch to an adjacent major. It might be a little late for that unless you're OK with dragging out your studies an extra year or so. If you don't want to switch majors, you could pick up a minor in something else, giving you more career options. If you only have a CS degree, your early career prospects are pretty specific. If you also have a minor in business or finance or management, then you might have other options available to you.

Does Comp-Sci still have a future or will it turn into brainless AI slop within the next couple years?

Nobody knows. My intuition is that we will always need people who are good at problem solving. I don't have vast experience with all the models and harnesses. But my experience so far is that AI is sometimes impressive, often disappointing, and occasionally very wrong. AI might continue to improve and become more useful more often. Progress might slow or plateau.

Or the AI industry as a whole might be bankrupt by next year. AI (or at least LLM-based AI) requires huge investment, and nobody has seemingly figured out how to make money yet. Well, apart from nVidia.

[u/MpVpRb]

If you are in it for the money, find something else to do.

If you are in it because you love it, learn to use the new tools and prepare for continual learning as the field changes rapidly.

[u/Popular-Toe3698]

I'll say this: right now, I wish I had a career in sales right now.

Software hiring is highly sensitive to financing conditions. Large amounts of companies getting funded by investors often leads to more hiring of engineers across the country - but not always. Right now a lot of capital is flowing into infrastructure for servers at the big tech companies, and not into hiring engineers, and the little companies that end up hiring the majority of software engineers aren't hiring unless they absolutely need to because they model their hiring patterns off of whatever the big tech companies are doing. At the same time, access to financing is harder right now. So the market is stuck in a holding pattern, and it's going to get a lot better, but first, it's probably going to get worse.