Computer Science, are you sure?
← All postsDo not study Computer Science anymore. Nobody needs you, what are you going to do after your studies? It’s the stupidest and hardest thing to get into today.
That’s stuff we, we as in CS students, and that includes me, put up with. For me it’s at least bi-monthly that I get into such a discussion. And as discussions are short or cut off, here’s my actual response.
And I have thoughts.
Computer Science is not about coding.
It never was. The same way astronomy is not about telescopes, cooking is not about recipes and music is not about instruments. A musician uses instruments to create art. The instrument is the tool that gets you to a result. A lot of people know how to play the piano, but that doesn’t make all of those people great artists. Because it is about so much more than plucking the strings. And if everyone in the world was given a guitar, we still wouldn’t have many more popular musicians, and the majority of people wouldn’t even touch theirs.
This is what’s happening to coding. Creating new technology and software has never been about writing code. Code is cheap, and it just got cheaper. But the cost of software hasn’t moved. Everyone in the world is being given the guitar, everyone could open Claude or Codex and start building. But do they actually?
Again, Computer Science is not about coding. And if you tell people that we really don’t do much coding in our ETH CS program, they are confused, asking what else we do then.
Back to foundational science
If Computer Science isn’t about coding, what else do we do then? It’s about foundational theory, transforming information, reasoning. It’s about breaking down complex systems, understanding how they interact, and finding elegant solutions. And the term Computer Science will move back to its roots, towards deeper thinking and mathematical insights.
Other foundational science majors (maths, physics, etc.) are not getting all the grief and attitude that CS majors get. Think about it. We develop solutions. We use code to create those solutions, but it is about the solutions, not the code.
But on the other side, instead of only going levels down below the code, the “new” Software Development equally goes up abstractions above the code. Let me explain.
Development hasn’t gotten easier
I don’t like the term vibecoding. It feels cheap, when in reality the software that you create through agentic engineering has the highest quality there could be, if done right.
And exactly that “if done right” is the point. It’s easy to send a prompt and be stunned by the output, but now what? The percentage of people that actually ship, meaning launch and publish, is so small. So small. And the thing people don’t realize is that 20% of work will get you 80% of the way, and it’s the final 20% that makes the difference, and that’s where 80% of the work lies. Plus maintenance. Developing software isn’t a one-off thing. People realize soon enough that paying $20 a month for a service you can trust is well worth it compared to developing and maintaining your own thing.
The other thing: you can absolutely be good or bad at agentic engineering. Sending a prompt is easy, but co-working with models and orchestrating them to the point where your complex project is actually ready, that is hard.
And even amongst CS developers, using AI to help with the coding part of a project is getting lumped in with the word vibecoding, and vibecoding gets associated with easy, lightweight work. Work that doesn’t require much concentration, effort, or skill. And that so isn’t the case. All of this requires skill the same way manual coding requires skill. Same with effort. And concentration. Engineering is just as hard as it has been. I am repeating myself. Code is cheap. Software isn’t.
That seems short sighted and egoistic? Yeah, I know. Let’s get to it.
The industry
There are mass layoffs. Companies reducing staff by 30%. People who used to have highly respected careers now desperately looking for a job. Millions of students from top universities struggling to find work in a market where there are enough senior developers already. And what took a 20-person team, one person can do now.
Yes. The industry is tough. Industrial Revolution level tough, maybe more. And mostly it is tough because of the high expectations a CS degree carries.
Computer Science is by far no longer the cheap entry, know how to code, get rich degree field anymore. And if “Do not study Computer Science anymore” (remember the start of this text?) means exactly that, then yes, absolutely, I agree.
Computer Science is by far no longer the cheap entry, know how to code, get rich degree field anymore.
“It’s the hardest thing to get into today.” Probably true. It’s a hard industry, partly because of the state of the market, and partly because we are entering the field mid-transition. We are the generation that still learned to code manually, and yet might not write a single line of code later on. We are the ones getting in during the change, when nobody knows how jobs will look in five years.
“It’s the stupidest thing to get into.” I don’t think so.
What I mean to say
CS is not the easy thing anymore, it’s the hardest in a sense. But if you are passionate, willing to show up, treat people with respect, work proactively and use all the tools out there, you are already ahead of most. Because there are simply so many people in the industry not out of passion, but because of money or status or the idea of what a CS career used to be. The industry rewards people who solve problems, think, build and ship. Not people with a piece of paper. And that analytical, deep way of thinking needs to be trained, which is exactly the role of a university degree.
And again, this is my personal view. I’m a student out here, definitely not some industry professional. I probably wouldn’t have studied CS if the LLM revolution didn’t appear, and I couldn’t be happer that I did now. Different people have different views, and in the end you have to form and follow your own. What I am trying to show is perspective. A perspective that a lot of people are missing.
Thanks for reading to this point, and best of luck for whatever you are doing. Whether it’s studying for an exam, applying for an internship, a job, or chilling on the beach of Santa Theresa. You’ve shown that you care by reading this far, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.