Anxiety is in the air at computer science programs on university campuses across Texas.
Universities are incorporating artificial intelligence into education more every year, while admissions to computer science programs are down roughly 20% in Texas and nationally as hiring slows for software engineers.
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Students are experiencing those changes in real time as they prepare to enter an uncertain job market in a rapidly changing industry.
“At the very beginning, it was a joke,” said Derek Do, a third year computer science major at the University of Texas at Austin. “The industry took it seriously, but a lot of the students didn’t.”
A computer science degree, previously seen as a reliable path to a well-paying tech job, doesn’t seem like such a sure thing to many students who worry that they will be the first victims of a future built around AI.
“I’ve applied to a billion jobs, as everyone has too,” added Do, who was recently able to secure an internship with a top tech company.
Some of the highest unemployment rates for recent college graduates are degree holders in computer science and computer engineering, at 7% and 7.8% respectively, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study.
Postings for software development jobs in the U.S. have plunged since a 2022 hiring boom, according to data from Indeed compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
This uncertainty comes on the heels of a golden age for tech in the U.S. following the Great Recession of 2008, when six-figure starting salaries were almost a guarantee for students graduating from top computer science programs. The demand was such that major U.S. tech companies launched a campaign in the early 2010s encouraging high schoolers to learn to computer code, promising lucrative, stable careers once they finished college.
Now, Texas universities are reworking their computer science curricula in response to the fast-changing job market.
Computer science students are taught to write the instructions computers use to operate. As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, it’s now able to do much of that coding work with a speed and accuracy human software developers can’t match.
Chairs of computer science departments at UT Austin, the University of Texas at San Antonio and Baylor University said the changing job market is a frequent topic of discussion among their students and faculty.
“The students are anxious, the faculty are anxious, it’s a natural human tendency when things are uncertain,” said Peter Stone, chair of UT Austin’s computer science department.
Company lays off workers after adopting AI
Parth Patki, a spring 2025 graduate from UT Austin’s computer science program, has personally experienced the tumult of being a software engineer in the age of AI.
During his time at UT, Patki followed the same path as so many computer science majors before him, including an internship at an international cybersecurity firm. That was followed by a job offer to be a software engineer at the same company upon his graduation.
The use of artificial intelligence was essential to his work, and Patki said the six months he spent working there opened his eyes to the power of the new tools. New software engineers are commonly given space to make mistakes and learn from more senior engineers, Patki said.
“I learned so many things at that company I would never have learned in college, but the amount of time and mistakes that I made were plentiful,” Patki said. “The amount of time for AI to do the same thing that I was doing, making no mistakes, or very few, doing it in seconds instead of a week. It was wild.”
Patki was laid off in December along with about half of the software engineers working in his office. He said his bosses told them the company decided to restructure and slim down the company because of the efficiencies AI had introduced to the workplace.
Thrust back into the job market, Patki said he applied to an average of 25 jobs a day over the course of two months before receiving an offer from one of only two companies that called him back for an interview.
Professors see reasons for optimism
Professor Fred Martin, chair of the computer science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said the job market is changing for software developers as the use of AI becomes more common. He also noted that the Federal Reserve of New York study on employment for recent college graduates shows some positives for those entering the industry.
The median wage for early career graduates in computer science and engineering is still higher than any other degree, while the Fed’s “underemployment rate,” or the percentage of students working jobs unrelated to their degree, is also lower for computer science grads than most other degree fields.
“Definitely, it’s harder to get jobs,” Martin said. “There’s no question about that. But our kids, the ones who have internships, who know how to talk to people and have the chops, they totally have jobs. They get great jobs.”
Martin pointed to the burst of hiring that many top tech companies did in the wake of COVID lockdowns ending. Many companies are now realizing they simply have a glut of employees and are hesitant to continue hiring amid an uncertain economy still grappling with elevated inflation and hiring slowdowns across the board, Martin said.
Martin said he hopes enrollment in computer science programs is simply stabilizing after being elevated for an extended period.
Professor Jean Gao, chair of the Baylor University computer science department, argued that AI may create more jobs in software development as it makes it cheaper and easier for companies outside of the tech industry to incorporate the tools into their business. Students pursuing the field in hopes of simply landing a high paying job may not find the same level of success as a student that is truly passionate about software development in a tighter job market, but that is a reality faced by most other job fields, Gao added.
“Computer science is just like glue, in every field you need it, like health care, insurance, finance, cyber security, everywhere needs computer science,” Gao said. “So that’s why students need to make themselves different. They don’t want to be like so many other similar candidates with no differentiations.”
All three department chairs said they have introduced new curricula in response to AI’s increasing use in the workplace. Gao and Stone said they both have introduced classes for all undergraduate students that teach the foundation of AI use.
Students adapting to changing job market
Vivian Tran, a senior at UTSA and president of the campus’ Association for Computing Machinery chapter, said she and her peers are constantly talking about the job market and how they should respond to the changes caused by AI.
She said most of her friends opted to stay in school and pursue master’s degrees rather than entering the job market now “just because they wanted to avoid the job market for now,” Tran said.
During her time at UTSA, Tran has seen AI go from a gimmick that had limited use for class assignments to a powerful tool that can save her hours of coding work.
Tran has experienced that difficult job market personally, submitting 250 internship applications before securing a summer internship as a software engineer at Uber, something she hopes will turn into a full time job with the ride share company.
Tran agreed that the job market is not impossible, but it is certainly more difficult.
“On one end, there’s people that, you know, just focus on the degree. And that’s completely fine. I understand everyone has different … circumstances, but obviously that isn’t cutting it anymore,” Tran said. “The other end of the spectrum, there’s people that are solely …dedicated to the grind: doing elite code problems and building projects to put on your resume, networking events, and just [becoming] like the general, ‘LinkedIn warrior.’”
Danielle Nyame, a freshman computer science major at UT, said she’s still optimistic and hopes to land a job at the intersection of business or social justice, using AI to power technology that will help society.
“AI will not be able to take over every single aspect of this field, but it will be able to help aid with the work that is done in this field,” she said.
Patki, the recent UT graduate who was laid off last year, now works as a machine learning engineer at Paypal and uses AI every day to create new software faster than he ever thought possible.
That has opened his eyes to the ways AI could change work in other industries.
“I think there’s a lot to learn and still a lot for AI to grow,” Patki said. “It’s both as bad and not as bad as people think.”
The work is exciting and interesting, he said, but he now prioritizes building up his savings account in case of another layoff.
“I know that I’m replaceable,” Patki said. “Every day, I’m reminded that I’m replaceable.”
Disclosure: Baylor University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.