6 ms·

I'm currently a senior in university (Dual CS and Computer Engineering), and I can say that it looks unbelievably grim in the Computer Science side of things.

I'm currently a senior in university (Dual CS and Computer Engineering), and I can say that it looks unbelievably grim in the Computer Science side of things. In my classes there is hardly anyone that has been able to get their hands on an internship, and even the professors have started their classes with monologues about "I don't even know why you show up, none of you will have jobs after graduation, good luck out there." (quote from my DS professor) A lot of my peers are looking to move out of the US and look for jobs elsewhere, or perhaps jump straight into graduate school to ride it out. On the Computer Engineering side, the faculty seems a lot happier, and the students also seem to be better off. But I don't think this will last however, I have noticed a steady decline in the businesses that have been searching for Computer Engineering in our career fairs. When I enrolled there were about two dozen "Computer Engineering Wanted" posters at the fair, and the last one in Feb 2025 I only counted one. I'm honestly thinking that if this continues I'll be looking at the military, right now I'm trying to work on side projects in the meantime.

pchristensen 1y ago
There's setting expectations, but saying "none of you will have jobs after graduation" feels criminally cynical and counter productive, especially coming from a teacher.
- rezmason 1y ago
  What do y'all think of this one? In 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, one of my commencement speakers (and the recipient of an honorary doctorate) was Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express. I don't remember his exact words, but his message to the graduating class was, we have a different perspective on the world and different values— thriftier ones, necessarily— and if we stay true to them, the world will reflect them when we succeed. "Maybe instead of having a car, like your parents' generation, your first big purchase may be a bike. Times change." Something like that. Four days later, he laid off four thousand workers from AmEx, just a smidge more people than the graduating class. Edit: according to Wikipedia, that year he took home $16.6 million.
  - pchristensen 1y ago
    There’s a huge difference between “a bad job market for new grads“ and “none of you will have jobs next year“
coderjames 1y ago
My department at the place I work is actively hiring Software Engineers. We have nine open requisitions for any seniority level and are regularly conducting interviews, but the new-grad candidates this year have been... disappointing. I've conducted two phone screens this month and asked each candidate to implement FizzBuzz in their language of choice after giving them an explanation of the problem. Both took more than ten minutes to write out a solution and we don't even require them to run it; I'll excuse trivial syntax errors in an interview setting if I can tell what you meant. When CS students can't write a basic for loop and use the modulo operator without relying on AI, I weep for their generation.
- ikiris 1y ago
  Are you offering enough pay that competent people would want to work there?
  - coderjames 1y ago
    We're in the greater Seattle area and I make north of $200k, so I feel like yes :shrug:
- testing1235 1y ago
  I also tutor students in the entry level C++ and Python courses (which are taken during your first two semesters as a CS student), and I must agree that a large cohort of my class is only able to program if they have ChatGPT/Claude open on one half of their screen. I'm not sure how to solve this either, unless we want to start doing in person "interview" styled questions as an exam on a locked down computer. I honestly think that doing an in person fake technical interview with a few easy Leetcode questions at the end of your education would be a good way to weed out those that have failed to even learn the basics of the trade.
  - linguae 1y ago
    I teach computer science at a community college in Silicon Valley. Even before generative AI became available to the general public, cheating has been an issue with CS programming assignments. One way I try to disincentivize cheating on projects is by having in-class paper exams, including weekly quizzes, as well as in-class paper assignments, and making sure that these in-class assessments are weighted significantly (roughly 60% of the overall grade). No electronic devices are allowed for these assignments. This forces my students to be able to write code without being able look up things online or consult an AI tool. I still assign take-home programming projects that take 1-2 weeks to complete; students submit compilable source code. Practical hands-on programming experience is still vital, and even though cheating is possible, the vast majority of my students want to learn and are honest. Still, for in-person assessments, if I had the budget, I’d prefer to hand out laptops with no Internet connection and a spartan selection of software, just a text editor and the relevant compiler/interpreter. It would making grading in-class submissions easier. But since we don’t have this budget, in-class exams and exercises are the next best solution I could think of.
AI_beffr 1y ago
there is certainly no shortage of tech capital flowing right now... where is the corresponding burst in hiring? is this economic or AI?
bruce511 1y ago
I'll roll back the clock somewhat to 1992 when I graduated. A different time, but also a challenging one. (As with all reminiscing context matters, and those elsewhere likely have a different history. ) I graduated into a world without internet (we had it at university, hosted on Unix and Vax machines, but it wasn't available commercially. ) People who had computers were running DOS. Most businesses had no computers at all. So the job market was both good and bad. We graduated with skills that were hard to find. But we graduated into a world where big companies had computers, small companies had paper. So huge market opportunity, but also huge challenges. We'd either graduate into big business (banking, insurance, etc) or start something new. I joined a person doing custom software development. We'd sell both the need, the software, and usually the hardware. ) When we didn't have work we'd work on our own stuff, eventually switching from custom development to products. We had to bootstrap, there was no investment money in our neck of the woods. I won't pretend the job market is the same (or even vaguely similar) now, but it seems to me that opportunities for self-employment still exist. Software is still something you can build with basically zero capital. Ultimately a job is just someone else finding a way to add value to society. Software us one of the few ways you can do that yourself, skipping the employer. 95% of people see "a job" as the goal. I get that. My own kids are like that (zero interest in starting something new.) But there are opportunities for the other 5%. Yes, it's lot more than just coding, and yes it's a lot more risky, but the opportunities are there. As for me, I'm closing in on retirement, but at the same time building a new (not tech) business from scratch, because there's still value I can add, and a niche I can service. I say this all to encourage current students. You can see the world as "done" or you can see it as an infant just waiting for you to come and add your unique value. And in 35 year's time feel free to encourage the next generation with your story.
- theGnuMe 1y ago
  This is the correct philosophy.
jlack 1y ago
At my company, we have increasingly been experiencing interns reneging on their offers. Students will accept multiple offers and then bail on the one they don't want last minute which prevents us from replacing them with someone else. We bring in hundreds of interns every summer and the reneg rate is approaching 20%. It sucks because it prevents people from getting an internship(and us getting the intern).
- rightbyte 1y ago
  Low trust society. Due to how recruiting works nowadays I guess what they are doing is rational. Do they fear their main choice of employer bailing on their offer?
- pokerface_86 1y ago
  [dead]
- s1mplicissimus 1y ago
  It sounds like they are using a smart strategy for their outcome optimization: Not putting all eggs in one basket, or staking all hopes on one employer. You do the same by accepting a bigger pool of applicants than you plan to hire - so what makes you feel entitled to a privileged position in such negotiations?
  - jlack 1y ago
    I was simply providing an anecdote to a post about students not being able to find internships, not claiming entitlement. My point being some students take multiple offers, reducing availability.
- BergAndCo 1y ago
  [dead]

pchristensen 1y ago

There's setting expectations, but saying "none of you will have jobs after graduation" feels criminally cynical and counter productive, especially coming from a teacher.

rezmason 1y ago
What do y'all think of this one? In 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, one of my commencement speakers (and the recipient of an honorary doctorate) was Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express. I don't remember his exact words, but his message to the graduating class was, we have a different perspective on the world and different values— thriftier ones, necessarily— and if we stay true to them, the world will reflect them when we succeed. "Maybe instead of having a car, like your parents' generation, your first big purchase may be a bike. Times change." Something like that. Four days later, he laid off four thousand workers from AmEx, just a smidge more people than the graduating class. Edit: according to Wikipedia, that year he took home $16.6 million.
- pchristensen 1y ago
  There’s a huge difference between “a bad job market for new grads“ and “none of you will have jobs next year“

coderjames 1y ago

My department at the place I work is actively hiring Software Engineers. We have nine open requisitions for any seniority level and are regularly conducting interviews, but the new-grad candidates this year have been... disappointing. I've conducted two phone screens this month and asked each candidate to implement FizzBuzz in their language of choice after giving them an explanation of the problem. Both took more than ten minutes to write out a solution and we don't even require them to run it; I'll excuse trivial syntax errors in an interview setting if I can tell what you meant. When CS students can't write a basic for loop and use the modulo operator without relying on AI, I weep for their generation.

ikiris 1y ago
Are you offering enough pay that competent people would want to work there?
- coderjames 1y ago
  We're in the greater Seattle area and I make north of $200k, so I feel like yes :shrug:
testing1235 1y ago
I also tutor students in the entry level C++ and Python courses (which are taken during your first two semesters as a CS student), and I must agree that a large cohort of my class is only able to program if they have ChatGPT/Claude open on one half of their screen. I'm not sure how to solve this either, unless we want to start doing in person "interview" styled questions as an exam on a locked down computer. I honestly think that doing an in person fake technical interview with a few easy Leetcode questions at the end of your education would be a good way to weed out those that have failed to even learn the basics of the trade.
- linguae 1y ago
  I teach computer science at a community college in Silicon Valley. Even before generative AI became available to the general public, cheating has been an issue with CS programming assignments. One way I try to disincentivize cheating on projects is by having in-class paper exams, including weekly quizzes, as well as in-class paper assignments, and making sure that these in-class assessments are weighted significantly (roughly 60% of the overall grade). No electronic devices are allowed for these assignments. This forces my students to be able to write code without being able look up things online or consult an AI tool. I still assign take-home programming projects that take 1-2 weeks to complete; students submit compilable source code. Practical hands-on programming experience is still vital, and even though cheating is possible, the vast majority of my students want to learn and are honest. Still, for in-person assessments, if I had the budget, I’d prefer to hand out laptops with no Internet connection and a spartan selection of software, just a text editor and the relevant compiler/interpreter. It would making grading in-class submissions easier. But since we don’t have this budget, in-class exams and exercises are the next best solution I could think of.

AI_beffr 1y ago

there is certainly no shortage of tech capital flowing right now... where is the corresponding burst in hiring? is this economic or AI?

bruce511 1y ago

I'll roll back the clock somewhat to 1992 when I graduated. A different time, but also a challenging one. (As with all reminiscing context matters, and those elsewhere likely have a different history. ) I graduated into a world without internet (we had it at university, hosted on Unix and Vax machines, but it wasn't available commercially. ) People who had computers were running DOS. Most businesses had no computers at all. So the job market was both good and bad. We graduated with skills that were hard to find. But we graduated into a world where big companies had computers, small companies had paper. So huge market opportunity, but also huge challenges. We'd either graduate into big business (banking, insurance, etc) or start something new. I joined a person doing custom software development. We'd sell both the need, the software, and usually the hardware. ) When we didn't have work we'd work on our own stuff, eventually switching from custom development to products. We had to bootstrap, there was no investment money in our neck of the woods. I won't pretend the job market is the same (or even vaguely similar) now, but it seems to me that opportunities for self-employment still exist. Software is still something you can build with basically zero capital. Ultimately a job is just someone else finding a way to add value to society. Software us one of the few ways you can do that yourself, skipping the employer. 95% of people see "a job" as the goal. I get that. My own kids are like that (zero interest in starting something new.) But there are opportunities for the other 5%. Yes, it's lot more than just coding, and yes it's a lot more risky, but the opportunities are there. As for me, I'm closing in on retirement, but at the same time building a new (not tech) business from scratch, because there's still value I can add, and a niche I can service. I say this all to encourage current students. You can see the world as "done" or you can see it as an infant just waiting for you to come and add your unique value. And in 35 year's time feel free to encourage the next generation with your story.

theGnuMe 1y ago
This is the correct philosophy.

jlack 1y ago

At my company, we have increasingly been experiencing interns reneging on their offers. Students will accept multiple offers and then bail on the one they don't want last minute which prevents us from replacing them with someone else. We bring in hundreds of interns every summer and the reneg rate is approaching 20%. It sucks because it prevents people from getting an internship(and us getting the intern).

rightbyte 1y ago
Low trust society. Due to how recruiting works nowadays I guess what they are doing is rational. Do they fear their main choice of employer bailing on their offer?
pokerface_86 1y ago
[dead]
s1mplicissimus 1y ago
It sounds like they are using a smart strategy for their outcome optimization: Not putting all eggs in one basket, or staking all hopes on one employer. You do the same by accepting a bigger pool of applicants than you plan to hire - so what makes you feel entitled to a privileged position in such negotiations?
- jlack 1y ago
  I was simply providing an anecdote to a post about students not being able to find internships, not claiming entitlement. My point being some students take multiple offers, reducing availability.
BergAndCo 1y ago
[dead]