If one is thinking about not getting a degree and trying to go straight to work, as someone who did so (albiet out of poverty rather than choice) but didn't end up like Zuck, please heed my warning:<p>Social capital matters more than just about anyone who has a degree can understand and tell you or mentor you about, because the majority of them have always had it, and they tend not even to interact with people without it.<p>It is a signal about your wealth (and your families ability to deploy it for you), from which follows your stability, your intelligence, your taste, your willingness to play the game, and your belonging in the club. These matter more than EVER in the business world - I've never seen a time when tech is less about engineering than right now.
> The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently placed unemployment for recent CS graduates in the United States at 6.1 percent, with computer engineering graduates at 7.5 percent. Compared to philosophy majors at 3.2 percent and art history graduates at 3.0 percent, those figures look alarming.<p>Alarming doesn’t begin to describe it. This is an existential crises for our industry. The situation for entry level has been dire for some time. Those of us who have decades experience have nothing to worry about; the companies who replace juniors with AI are doomed. It takes years to gain proficiency with art of software engineering. Who will replace us? Or what am I missing?
Oh good lord not that statistic again.<p>Left unstated is what jobs philosophy and art history majors take.<p>There's more computer scientists working in computer science than there are philosophy or art history majors working in philosophy or art history.
<a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major" rel="nofollow">https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...</a> (note: Latest Release: February 4, 2026, based on data from 2024)<p>Yes, this has unemployment computer engineering at #2 with 7.8% and computer science at #5 at 7.0%.<p>Philosophy is at 5.1% unemployment.<p>The next column is <i>also</i> important to look at - the underemployment rate. Is the graduate in a profession that requires the degree.<p><pre><code> The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. A job is classified as a college job if 50 percent or more of the people working in that job indicate that at least a bachelor's degree is necessary; otherwise, the job is classified as a non-college job.
</code></pre>
Philosophy has a 47.1% underemployment rate. Half of the graduates with a philosophy degree aren't employed in a job that requires a college degree.<p>Underemployment for computer engineering is at 15.8% (3rd lowest) and computer science is at 19.1% (9th lowest).<p>If you want a unemployment rate for computer science that matches philosophy the answer is easy - hold your nose and take the front desk receptionist job.<p>Also... sort by "median wage early career." Computer engineering and computer science are #1 and #2 at $90k and $87k. There's something important there too - most college graduates are not getting $100k/year jobs. That expectation of Big Tech wages out of college and turning one's nose up at a job that offers the median claiming that "it isn't competitive" may be contributing to the unemployment rate.<p>There isn't an existential crisis there. Most college graduates are finding jobs in the profession and computer science and engineering (from that data) are the highest paying college majors.
I think that figure (haven’t verified it but assuming it’s true) isn’t complete. It hides who and where those people are - for example, I imagine art history skews towards higher ranked schools in the first place.
I think we're going to see a big scramble to pick up the pieces in a few years when a bunch of vibe-slopped houses of cards come crashing down. I imagine it will be like the demand for COBOL developers but on a much more massive scale.
My impression is that in the past year or so, IEEE journals have been leaning pretty heavily into low-quality, AI-generated articles. And looks like this author produced not one, not two, but three career advice columns in a single day - impressive:<p><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/brian-jenney" rel="nofollow">https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/brian-jenney</a>
People can kvetch but the advice in the article is correct. The alternative of no degree is <i>extremely</i> difficult to succeed with unless you have a pre-existing network.<p>Additionally, getting into the best school possible is critical. The top 20 CS, CE, and EE undergrad programs in the US graduate around 15-20k students a years. That is a large enough pool to recruit from for NCGs. For diversity reasons, employers will often also recruit from Veteran programs and some respected regional colleges (eg. SJSU, CalPoly, or SCU in the Bay or UTD, UTA, or UTSA in Austin) call it a day, so <i>where you go</i> truly does matter.
If you’re going to get a CS degree, do it in a master’s degree program. Get your undergraduate degree in anything else that involves at least some mathematics, I’d recommend physics, chemistry, molecular biology, planetary sciences - probability, calculus, linear algebra. Engineering is somewhat more on the vocational side, but that works too.<p>Why? You don’t narrow your scope at the beginning!
This may be a cynical take, but as someone with 10+ years of experience why should I care if companies are too short sighted to value and train juniors?
To twist another saying: "Employers can be short-sighted for longer than I can delay my rent payment."
You're framing it like they're making a mistake, so if they are, yeah that's not good for you either.<p>Idk though, really seems like the "AI layoffs" are just corps shedding headcount bloat accumulated in 2020-23.
Because eventually you'll get to the point where you've too much work to do and there's not enough people to delegate it to.<p>Hope you like being overworked!
Sure. Why give a shit about anything really.
Where do you draw the line on that attitude? Do you not care about global warming because in your lifetime, you're probably not going to experience an unsurvivable wet bulb temperature where you happen to live?