Preparing Graduates to Succeed in an Evolving Job Market

Newsday interviewed representatives from the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on entry-level computer science jobs and efforts to prepare graduates to succeed in an increasingly AI-driven job market. In addition to highlighting the new AI minor, the article included insight from Dean Babak D. Beheshti, Ph.D., and undergraduate computer science major Jaan Malik, who founded the AI-powered app Kreativio.

Beheshti said that while AI will “automate certain coding tasks, especially repetitive ones like debugging and basic software development,” it won’t eliminate many jobs outright. Instead, the technology “will likely change the nature of those jobs.” In addition, as AI is more widely used, opportunities for computer science graduates will open in industries outside the tech field. For example, as Beheshti shared, agriculture “was not necessarily a computer-focused industry,” but now “the technology exists where we can equip drones with AI capabilities to fly over crops, take pictures to see what diseases the crops have, and ID them automatically.”