The Second-Year Slump Meets the AI Boom
By: Sean Owen Refolledo
The High Stakes of a Shifting Meta
Being a second-year student of BSIT, my late-night coding assignments are frequently interrupted by a gnarly idea which gets into my mind: Could a machine do it as well as I can? The graduation line seems to be shifting as far as it is with the blistering pace of Large Language Models and automated development tools. It is not just about the AI replacing the jobs; the entry level bar was really high to the extent that a degree may not even pass it. In the case of us who are still pursuing our studies, we always have the feeling that we are in a rat-race with some form of technology that seems to change every week.
The Self-Study Pivot: Why I am Not Merely Following the Syllabus
I knew at an early age that I am basically educating myself to be a redundancy as long as I am just learning what is being put across in the classroom. I have resorted to self-study in order to remain tilt-proof in this new job market. Although university offers the necessary reasoning behind data structures and networking, I use my free time to understand how to organize these systems as well as AI tools.
I am educating myself on how to treat AI as a trainee of high level, but not as a replacement. Through reading, I am establishing a position within myself as an architect of solutions—not a syntax writer. It is an advantage to understand what to create and how to debug the intricate hallucinations that a machine can create in a world where any person can create code on command.
Redefining the Career Path
The employment landscape that I will enter in two years will be no similar to the one that was there during my freshman year. Nevertheless, I had a lesson that the patch to the career of an IT student lies in the ultimate adaptation. I am not going to compete with AI in terms of raw speed or efficiency but rather on the aspects that it cannot do well: critical thinking, complex project management, and an ability to comprehend human needs. I am no longer a student, I am a bootstrapper on my own, ready to live in a hybrid world.
The Grind Continues
Will it be harder to find a job? Perhaps. But hard is not impossible. My experience in the Rift revealed to me that you do not give up on the game because the meta is changing, but you modify your build. I continue to grind, continue practicing, and continue to improve my own patch notes. As long as I continue learning quicker than the models do, I will have a home in the industry.
My Post-AI Market Approach
- Aggressive Self-Study: Learning libraries and frameworks beyond the normal school curriculum.
- Human-centric Logic: Focusing more on system design and structure than simple syntax.
- Integrating AI: Learning how I can utilize AI as a force multiplier to be more productive.
- Constant Change: The ability to view my skillset as a work-in-progress which needs a daily update.