I'm a first-year Computer Science student, and lately I've been questioning my education, career prospects, and the kind of life I want to build.

My current academic environment feels overwhelming, with constant assignments, exams, practicals, and deadlines. I sometimes feel I'm spending more time completing requirements than actually developing useful skills. Considering the financial investment my family is making, I'm unsure whether staying in my current institution is the right decision or whether I should explore alternatives.

I'm also concerned about AI changing the software industry, layoffs, and increasing competition. I want to build a career in technology, but I'm still developing my programming skills and sometimes feel behind other students.

Recently, I've also been thinking about what success means to me. I want financial independence, a comfortable lifestyle, and the ability to support my parents. I'm open to opportunities abroad, but I don't necessarily want to sacrifice family, personal freedom, and quality of life just to follow the conventional definition of success.
Questions I'd like guidance on
1. AI and careers: Is software engineering still a good long-term career choice? How will AI affect opportunities for fresh graduates?
2. Computer Science: What are its major branches, and which specializations offer good career growth, compensation, and work-life balance?
3. Skills: What should I learn to become a capable and competitive engineer rather than just another degree holder?
4. Career and lifestyle: How can I find well-paying jobs with reasonable working hours and a healthy work environment?
5. Education: Should I continue at my current institution or explore transferring elsewhere, considering the financial cost and possibility of losing a year?
6. Long-term goals: How can I build a successful career, support my parents, and still have time to enjoy life?

Question

I'm a first-year Computer Science student, and lately I've been questioning my education, career prospects, and the kind of life I want to build.

My current academic environment feels overwhelming, with constant assignments, exams, practicals, and deadlines. I sometimes feel I'm spending more time completing requirements than actually developing useful skills. Considering the financial investment my family is making, I'm unsure whether staying in my current institution is the right decision or whether I should explore alternatives.

I'm also concerned about AI changing the software industry, layoffs, and increasing competition. I want to build a career in technology, but I'm still developing my programming skills and sometimes feel behind other students.

Recently, I've also been thinking about what success means to me. I want financial independence, a comfortable lifestyle, and the ability to support my parents. I'm open to opportunities abroad, but I don't necessarily want to sacrifice family, personal freedom, and quality of life just to follow the conventional definition of success.
Questions I'd like guidance on
1. AI and careers: Is software engineering still a good long-term career choice? How will AI affect opportunities for fresh graduates?
2. Computer Science: What are its major branches, and which specializations offer good career growth, compensation, and work-life balance?
3. Skills: What should I learn to become a capable and competitive engineer rather than just another degree holder?
4. Career and lifestyle: How can I find well-paying jobs with reasonable working hours and a healthy work environment?
5. Education: Should I continue at my current institution or explore transferring elsewhere, considering the financial cost and possibility of losing a year?
6. Long-term goals: How can I build a successful career, support my parents, and still have time to enjoy life?

Anonymous Practitioner · Accepted Answer

Look I will be honest with you cause you're too similar to me when I joined for CS same ambitions . Now I'm final year . So I'm considering this as talking to my past self . Please bear with me

Assuming you're an Indian student our syllabus is shit ..all institutions , assignments , reports , classes everything is useless ... Want the best part ? Nothing you study may truly be useful in current or future situations ... Some classes like Java , basics of C , Network , AI etc are useful (i those are included in your syllabus.. I personally doesn't know about your university so I don't know what syllabus you're studying .. I'm talking from my experience in Kerala Technical University, KTU one of the shittiest universities in India)... So yeah the pressure and the overwhelming feeling is entirely natural. But remember you don't have to score ge perfect score in every exam , get perfect scores on everything , none of that matters for the most part... So don't worry about the overwhelming feeling🤍.  And financial investment I can't quite give you honest advice on that cause I don't know your background and many related things .. so I am not going to focus on that .. Now going to the questions ..
 
1) Long term yes .. AI will defo hurt freshers badly .. by badly I mean greatly ... But for the most part your batch will not suffer , because you are starting out with 4 years ahead of you and the option to work with AI . The most going to suffer is people from my batch .. the current final year students and maybe the 3rd years as we didn't start out know AI will be the revolutionary and I'm being honest most of the students of my batch doesn't still know the problem we are going to face after graduating.. I do though cause I am kinda anxious about my future and have done quite research on the market right now ..  You have 4 years ahead of you .. work with AI not against it .. write boiler plates with ai , code with AI , but don't be a vibe coder... Understand the code AI writes for you , Let AI work for you , not replace you ... And by the time you're graduating you're 10x productive with AI and could easily get entry level jobs (as that time the people in there would be mostly our batch and since most of us doesn't have that good experience with AI you could easily get our place .. the company will be ready to layoff us to get better devs who could be more productive with AI.. Software Engineering is not about writing code it's much more than that...You will understand it latter till then he overwhelming feeling is natural.. .. So my point is you may struggle , job openings is going down for sure , but you could easily replace someone ..

2) Branches in CS: Before reading this section remember it's better to research about this yourself cause in the end you have to find what you line yourself ... Now going on

SWE :- This is a very broad area . This branch deals with the development, maintaining softwares from start to finish and further .. It isn't just writing code , planning features , designing workflows , maintaining existing softwares , debugging etc etc ... There are many sub branches , if u may , in SWE .. Frontend Engineer  , backend engineer ,, Database engineer , ,  UI/UX dev(which may be sub branch of frontend) , Debugging , DevOps, Cloud Engineering (which honestly may be a seperate branch itself if u need) , QA , Testing etc .. etc... I can't go into detail for each and every one but I'm open to further help if u want ..

Cybersecurity :- look into it most closely .. this is going upwards ... If you follow news you will see the rise of AI has exposed many security exploits in existing softwares .. so guess who are dealing with those exploits .. these guys .. so yeah this is going to get increasingly in demand , salaries are going up , openings are going up , most safe future bet for sure ..

AI engineering:- Yes going to increase .. a bit difficult to get into , if we study AI we may think okay it's easy , we can easily do projects , get some experience and think we can get job easily ... But the real world jobs and requirements is drastically different from what we study and do projects on .. context management , memory management , laying guard rails , prompt engineering , preventing hallucinations ..yeah it's like a sleeper build if you think ...  High paying , increasing demand but lot of competition with people thinking they can do this .. needs to standout

ML  engineering :- harder to get into ... Entry jobs are very limited , deals with developing models , maybe R&D in ML etc... on my reasearch I have heard that it may require masters degree or some complex personal projects to get into a good ML role .. I think this is the highest paying right now along with data scientist or data engineer

Data engineering:- highest paying along with ML .. deals with business data , etc .. me personally never had interest in it so haven't looked into it much further ...

Other branches which I am not going into detail cause it may become too long and I haven't done deep research on them cause I didn't have appeal towards low level programming ... IOT , Embedded  , Robotics engineering .. etc ..

I haven't talked about work life balance because it heavily depends on what company you work for , what projects you work , where you work etc ...

3) Problem solving , Critical thinking , Debugging(overlooked by many) , ability to peer review the code (good when you work with AI) , have deep knowledge in 1 or 2 language .. specialise a single brach .. have a niche of your own ... Like have a good knowledge in a combination of two branches ... Like backend and ai .. cybersecurity and ai/ML ... Etc ..

4)Networking ... Attend tech events , hackathons , coding competitions , it will give you exposure ... LinkedIn..have a presence there ... Constantly stalk HRs , CEOs , Devs and people of companies you want to get into .. learn the type of projects each company is doing and build a personal resume with similar tech stack while applying for any open roles , cold mailing is also okay ... Don't entirely rely on sites like indeed , internshala etc ..

5) TBH whatever makes you happy .. losing 1 year may not be a big of an issue as you may think , but if you're  truly unhappy with your current institution remember it is not so different elsewhere.. everywhere in India is kinda same Engineering is overwhelming generally ..

6) Build habits , be consistent, make sure fall in love with programming (maybe it won't happen but that the best way to sta motivated).. you're starting early you have plenty of time , build good personal projects , build your resume , max out your tech charisma , attend tech events , network with other people , constantly challenge yourself , get out of your comfort zone , build the foundation well and get into a good job position... Once you break in you can support your parents ... And how to enjoy life .. TBH I haven't found that out myself :) .. but still there would the little moments in your college life , cherish those , build memories , have great friendships , maybe bag some CSE baddies from college 😁. Go for trips ,try new foods , play some games , go to gym , try any physical sport , get into college team of some physical sport , make sure to have friends or atleast people you could comfortable sit in a room with from all departments ... And your college life would be wonderful .. and you can enjoy your life .....

I know I kinda rushed the last portions cause it was getting incredibly long and word limit was running out ...😐..I would defo love to help you more...  if you would like to connect let's connect on Instagram.. account :- itz.me.abhiiiii__ (fake account)