6 Ways to Leverage a CS Degree with Emerging AI
I am still running into students that think majoring in Computer Science will get them into a career trajectory ASAP. The reality is entry-level jobs in this field are absolutely disappearing.
My daughter works in HR and has reiterated the same thing. If you really want to major in CS and learn coding (and that’s understandable), you need to be bringing something else to the party, something that AI cannot adequately do. This involves the human element, an equation that needs a degree of variable analysis that AI cannot currently replicate.
I am sharing a post I found today on X from a person called Big Brain AI:
“Former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang on why learn to code went from the safest career advice to the worst in just 4 years. Yang recently returned from an Al conference out west and what he heard alarmed him.
‘They said to me that what we’re going to see in the next six months outstrips what we’ve seen in the last 10 years because the rate of change is on a hockey stick and heading up. And I’ve got to say I’m pretty up to date on this stuff and it blew my mind on some of the stuff I was seeing.’
One example stuck with him: ‘There was one company that is selling autonomous coding for enterprises to big businesses and their revenue is up 100-fold in the last 12 months. If that continues, it’s going to eat a lot of the tech budgets from major corporates that used to go to humans. And so you’re seeing the employment of recent computer science graduates fall off a cliff from a lot of programs.’
Yang points out the irony of how quickly the advice has flipped. ‘If you rewind four years back, we’d tell young people for a secure career, learn to code. And now the opposite of that is true.’
On where this is heading long term, Yang cites Anthropic’s CEO.
‘Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, laid it out very clearly and he’s been doing so repeatedly, saying we’re going to automate away up to 50% of entry-level white collar jobs in the next several years. The easiest people to fire are the people you haven’t hired yet, which again is why you see the hiring of recent college graduates heading down. The unemployment rate among college graduates is now the same or higher than non-college graduates for the first time in history.’
Attributed to @realBigBrainAI and @AndrewYang
The key to career success
In this environment, a student must leverage computer science skills with identifiable extras. Coincidentally, I used AI to come up with some ideas to elevate a CS background. :-
1. CS + Human/Organizational Leadership
A software engineer that can manage people and strategy becomes harder to replace.
Add-ons:
- Organizational psychology
- Management
- Negotiation
- Behavioral economics
- Communication
2. CS + Law and Regulation
AI struggles with legal accountability, regulatory interpretation, negotiation and risk.
Add-ons:
- AI compliance
- Privacy law
- Cybersecurity regulation
- Intellectual property
- Digital evidence
3. CS + Healthcare / Biology
Healthcare requires: trust, ethics, interpretation of complex issues and liability assessment.
Add-ons:
- Bioinformatics
- Medical imaging AI
- Medical systems knowledge
- Hospital operation systems
4. CS + Cybersecurity
AI is still weak on adversarial reasoning, intuition, response under pressure, strategic defense; hence attackers can still gain access. This will become increasingly important as AI advances.
Add-ons:
- Digital forensics
- Network security
- Cryptography
- Security operations
- Threat intelligence
5. CS + Physical Systems
AI is strongest in digital environments. It is weak with any sort of physical infrastructure.
Add-ons:
- Electrical engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Robotics
- Energy systems
6. CS + Design / Human Experience
AI doesn’t understand nuance. Humans still define incentives, market structures, institutional strategy, and macro decisions. Especially valuable in AI-heavy industries like fintech and economic modelling.
Add-ons:
- HCI (Human-Computer Interaction)
- UX research
- Cognitive science
- Interaction design
- Ambiguous human situations: trust, persuasion, conflict
Most future-proof:
- CS + Cybersecurity
- CS + Healthcare/Biology
- CS + Law/Policy
- CS + Robotics/EE
Highest earning potential:
- CS + Finance
- CS + AI infrastructure
- CS + Product/Leadership
Best safeguard against automation:
- CS + Human leadership
- CS + Physical systems
- CS + regulated industries
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