AI looms over Silicon Valley students’ career choices

Bay Area high school students are increasingly factoring artificial intelligence into their college major and career decisions, with some reconsidering computer science due to fears of automation while others shift to fields like mechanical engineering or remain optimistic about AI's impact. The trend reflects growing anxiety among students about job security in an AI-driven economy.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready... Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Program for Bay Area high school students, an intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists. As college application season approaches, some Bay Area students are weighing familiar questions: Which major should I choose? What career do I want? What colleges should I apply to? But unlike previous generations, many students are asking an additional question: How will artificial intelligence change the future of my work? As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into classrooms and workplaces, students are beginning to factor the technology into decisions about college majors, career paths and future educational plans. While some are reconsidering fields they believe may be susceptible to automation, others see AI as something that will reshape, rather than replace, their future professions. For Sanyukta Ravishankar, a rising senior at Saratoga High School, AI was not initially a big factor when considering college majors. But she has watched it become increasingly present in conversations about college and careers. “I was in a college counseling workshop last week, and we were literally talking about it,” she said. “One of the biggest things was like, ‘Oh, AI is going to take over like all the CS computer science jobs.’” Sierra Ward, Saratoga High School’s college and career adviser, said AI has increasingly become part of conversations with students planning for college and careers. “People are trying to figure out what job is going to be safe and what fields will even have jobs,” Ward said. She added that some students are beginning to question paths that were once considered stable, particularly in computer science. “For the first time ever, some of my students are trying to ask me if they should bother taking computer science courses in general,” she said. Other students have already adjusted their educational plans because of AI concerns. Nithya Grandhi, a rising junior at Lynbrook High School, originally planned to pursue computer science after discovering coding through robotics in ninth grade. “Originally I was really into computer science when I started coding,” Grandhi said. “But so many entry-level positions in computer science are being taken over by AI.” Rather than abandoning the field altogether, Grandhi shifted her focus toward mechanical and electrical engineering. Not everyone studying computer science shares those concerns. Avinash Yajnik, a rising sophomore at UC Santa Cruz, who studied computer science his first year, remembers encountering ChatGPT while in high school. While he acknowledges that AI may replace some entry-level programming work, he believes the field will adapt. “As a programmer, you learn that the job market is affected by AI, but there is still a place for programmers,” he said. Hailey Dao, a rising junior at Carlmont High School in Belmont, also has reconsidered a potential career path because of AI. Interested in medicine, she looked into radiology as a possible profession after a career project that was assigned during her freshman year. But “radiology is less of an option now because AI can do the imaging on its own,” Dao said. However, she believes human oversight will still remain essential. “I do think you still need human oversight over the conclusions of AI, so there may still be a need for radiologist positions, just not as many,” she said. However, some students have not viewed AI as a reason to entirely change their course. At San Jose State University, rising junior Wamad Haroun, an aerospace engineering major, said AI has not altered his career goals. “I feel like it’s hard for AI to work at that level,” Haroun said. Ravishankar, the Saratoga High School senior, expects the conversation to become even more complicated as AI is increasingly embedded in everyday life. “I think the AI atmosphere is probably going to look a lot different in the next five years,” she said. “Right now, it’s a lot of chatbots and a lot of behind-the-scenes data processing at big companies. But five years from now, it might be in literally everything.” Shivali H. Patra is a member of the class of 2029 at Saratoga High School.