AI, the university, its impact and new developments

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I wanted to share a little bit of my opinion on university degrees, especially those related to software development, which is my field. I also want to talk about the impact of artificial intelligence and self-learning in this field, and how all of this intertwines from my perspective.

AI as a Support and Self-Learning Tool

I'm touching on this topic for two main reasons. First, because AI, although a tool, is gradually taking over some of the work. I've already mentioned this in another video: for now, I see AI as a support tool for developers. We can delegate routine tasks to it that would otherwise take hours. For example, what might take you two or three hours, AI can solve in minutes. That gives you a core to work on and adapt.

Second, AI works very well as a self-learning tool. In my case, I work alone, and I always missed having someone to ask questions. Sure, we had Google, but sometimes a simple search isn't enough. Finding precise answers can be complicated. On the other hand, AI, although it makes mistakes, usually produces quite useful results, even when one writes in a flat or sketchy way. For me, that's more than enough.

Where does the university fit into all this?

I went to the Central University of Venezuela. I graduated in five and a half years, even though the program was only five years long. I repeated some courses, which is part of what I want to talk about. This experience leads me to ask the following question: would I recommend that the new generations study at university, or follow another path?

With AI advancing so rapidly, it seems like it's hot on our heels. So, is it worth studying a five-year degree in computer science, without knowing what the world will be like in that time?

Careers at risk due to AI

There are already careers that we could consider dead or on the way to disappearing: translators, copywriters, and many others that depend solely on manual processes without deep reasoning. In translation, for example, AI already does it perfectly. If they haven't been eliminated, they're in the process of being eliminated.

In programming, there's still room. I don't think we'll disappear anytime soon. But the most affected, as I mentioned before, are juniors. And this connects with university: when you graduate from there, if you only followed the curriculum without doing anything else, you're not even a junior. So, where will you be after five years?

The University Curriculum Gap

Universities often have outdated curriculums, and we live in a world where everything changes every year, even every month. In my case, I took courses like Calculus (which I don't even remember anymore), Discrete Mathematics (which I do consider useful because of its logic), but also many others that weren't necessary for what I wanted to do.

I took four math courses. Each one lasted six months, and they met four times a week for two hours. That's a lot. I think it could be reduced. Long-term degrees involve seeing many things that, while knowledge should never be rejected, can feel like a waste of time in such a fast-paced world.

My Experience Starting Out

In my case, I first encountered programming in college. I didn't do any research beforehand; it was a different era. My first language was Java. I remember spending two weeks trying to understand System.out.println, and since I'm one of those people who doesn't advance unless they understand the reason for something, I got stuck. By the time I understood something, the course moved on to another topic. I rolled right out.

Something similar happened to me with discrete mathematics. I had a peculiar professor who would get offended if you failed a class. So, in addition to failing, you also had the burden of having "offended" her. She was an excellent professor, but a difficult one.

The Gap Between What's Taught and Reality

When you graduate, the world has changed. In my case, when I started my degree, CodeIgniter 2 was all the rage; By the time I finished, version 3 already existed, and Laravel wasn't being developed. New versions of PHP and frameworks were coming out. Today, changes happen much more rapidly. Laravel, for example, releases a major version every year for no clear reason, just to stay current.

And with AI, we don't know what will happen in five years. It's complicated.

What would I do today?

What I would do, which is more or less what I did, is not choose between university or self-study, but take both paths. As I said, a degree always looks good. Even if not everything you learn is used, the knowledge is there. It also gives you other perspectives on life.

For example, I started working in my third or fourth semester. While other classmates played truco between classes, I went to work. I had a job close to the university. It was hard, but I felt like I made much more progress than them.

So that's my recommendation. Don't choose just one path. Take advantage of both. If you can study and work, or study and learn for free, your account, do it. It'll give you a huge advantage. College isn't everything, but you shouldn't rule it out completely either.