Dan Grossman, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and associate dean of the Paul Allen School, believes that AI is not changing the value of IT education, but what is worth learning.
Dan Grossman, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and associate dean of the Paul Allen School, believes that AI is not changing the value of IT education, but what is worth learning.
According to him, AI tools are already taking over the «small details» of the code — where to put a semicolon, what exactly is the name of this or that construction. This is what a significant percentage of training used to be based on. Now the emphasis is shifting: the ability to accurately formulate what an algorithm should do, design the architecture of the application, and think structuredly is becoming important. These skills are not disappearing anywhere — on the contrary.
«There was a lot of emphasis on getting all the little details right. Where to put the semicolon, and where to put it? We’re already seeing AI taking over a lot of that — for non-professional developers, and in many ways for professional developers as well,» says Grossman.
Grossman also notes a shift in where graduates are going, Business Insider writes. More and more students are finding jobs not in purely tech companies, but in businesses in other industries that actively use software but are not primarily associated with IT.
The job market is mixed. According to the New York Federal Reserve, computer science and computer engineering majors have some of the highest unemployment rates among 2024 graduates, at 7,8% and 7%, respectively. At the same time, TrueUp data shows more than 67,000 open positions for software engineers, the most in three years.
The professor’s main thesis: the limit of what we want from software is far from being reached — and therefore, the demand for engineers will not disappear.
