Computer Science at uni. Is it worth it?

[Blurryeyed123]

DC will be in Y12 in Sept and wants to do computer science at uni. With the advent of how quickly AI is developing and taking off in all sectors plus how competitive a course it is, I am wondering if it is the right decision.

Any thoughts from parents with recent graduates or those of you already in the sector would be most welcome.

On a separate note… I think a pp has also queried how transferable a CS degree? Curious too.

Many jobs now in tech aren't what you would call traditionally technical e.g. programming, architecture.

So there are creative, data, business including accounting and marketing jobs in tech. None of my family and friends who work in tech actually have a computer science undergraduate degrees.

I think the issue is that CS degree holders don’t have a monopoly on the jobs they think they should get. It seems to be a hugely fashionable degree but does not guarantee the best jobs. MEng people will have great skills and probably more varied ones so have a very wide choice of jobs. I don’t believe employers fill all CS type vacancies with identical degree holders. They look for a variety of people and critical thinking skills. In my view it makes sense to look at engineering which might have a lower entry tariff.

It's a degree.

In the UK there are lots of jobs where you just need a degree but you need to have the right grade e.g. 2.1 and above, plus the right extracurriculars.

So if you do it and decide that instead you want to be an accountant then you can get on an accountancy graduate scheme/find a firm to train you to be an accountant. (I used this example as I've met and know accountants with a massive range of undergraduate degrees plus none.)

The main problem with doing something like Computer Science as a degree is because of the work load you may struggle to fit in extracurricular activities that make you appealing to other employers.

I rather suspect there’s a difference in workload between Cambridge/Imperial and, say, Salford. Plus there are vacations. Many full on courses do not stop summer internships or vacation working.

To be fair it was the engineering students at the universities I went to who were studied full on.

The other STEM students, which I was one off both times and my relatives including young ones, managed to fit in extracurricular activities if we planned our time wisely regardless of university we went to.

Oh and everyone I know who went to Imperial didn't live nearby.

@Reugny and @TizerorFizz that’s really super helpful. Thank you- We have a lot to consider and mull over with DD.

Her school doesn’t do CS for A level which means she plans on doing Maths/FM/ Physics and Chemistry. Of these she enjoys Chemistry the most so if considering engineering, it would likely be a Chem engineering course. We really need to sit down and go through all the options.

Chemical engineering isn't necessarily appealing to people who like chemistry! DH was a chemist in industry and always advised our dd it was the one type of engineering he wouldn't encourage her to do (obviously it must suit some people though).

She's now an electronics design engineer so her work involves a fair bit of programming (in C which is pretty gnarly!). During her degree they also used Python (which seems to be very popular nowadays and is used for a lot of machine learning/AI applications. If your DD is self teaching that's probably a good choice)

On the other hand I'm also a chemist but have spent nearly 40 years coding - scientific software development. It's very much a field where you need to know the subject to write about - ie a PhD in the relevant area essential plus aptitude for coding. Most if not all STEM degrees will include coding modules nowadays - heck, mine did back in 1980 even if it was fortran on cards.

One of DD's housemates did chemical engineering. It was very full on and more maths than anything else.

No. CS is way more than just coding which will be automated in a few years. Modern courses also teach the mathematics and techniques required to understand and build algorithms and test models. In the near future non-graduate ‘coders’ will definitely not be able to find work for what they do.

No. CS is way more than just coding which will be automated in a few years

At which point, the human coders will be building the AI products that automate the coding lol

Engineering is probably more versatile, my dc's degree overlapped 50% with computer science but had the added mech and electrical engineering elements including robotics. 100% employment rate according to university website

There are more tech jobs than those that involve coding.

That's because the course is such hard work that those that stay manage to get to the final year and graduate are sought after.

No. AI models will build the AI models that automate coding. It’s already begun at Chinese banks.

OP - I'm a software developer. I don't have a computer science degree, although my undergrad had coding modules. There are 3 main things you need to understand here.

a) Computer Science as a discipline teaches scientific rigour and logical thinking, like any other STEM subject. It is more like a branch of applied mathematics. It is not meant to 'teach coding' as professional practice.
There is great variety in modules. The top universities will have more pure Computer Science modules with some very difficult mathematics, then you have universities with more 'practical' modules. And some have a lot of what I call fluff modules like 'it project management' that can allow you to get a computer science degree without much analytical rigour.

b) Regarding jobs for computer scientists, there again is a huge variety. CS graduates definitely have an advantage for the top jobs in top tech companies. There are also jobs which definitely require a computer science education. At a more complex level a strong grasp of computer science fundamentals is required.

However, apart from the vast amount of 'non-technical' tech jobs that PP have mentioned. Many technical roles don't, strictly speaking require a computer science degree, and there are lots of people who have 'taught themselves to code'. Equally, a lot of roles like infrastructure engineering for example (which isn't necessarily programming) was never done by people with CS degrees to begin with, it's those who trained as apprentices, and worked their way up with professional qualifications.

You will find for example a lot of front-end developers (loads, since that's what most bootcamps do), 'data science' related devs, devops all self-taught. But you'll rarely find C++ developers, high performance computing, those who work on things like high frequency trading systems, etc anybody without a computer science degree. Equally for jobs like security researcher a strong grasp of the fundamentals , depending on the modules taken in university will come in very useful.

c) Is it a good degree choice? Definitely! However as alluded to earlier the devil is in the detail.
Some PP have pointed out that engineering is 'more employable' but this isn't true. A course like @mitogoshi mentioned - definitely. Civil engineering/'pure' mechanical engineering/chemical engineering - probably not. The jobs that require 'any STEM' for programming/technical roles of course will accept CS grads as well. The jobs that don't want candidates with a strong grasp of computer science fundamentals, for which the degree is required.

If your daughter likes Computer Science, there's no reason not to go for it. Even programming jobs are about more than just 'coding'. Designing systems , dealing with requirements, making technical decisions. It's about the whole way of thinking. There are many paths... she can become a subject matter expert in a niche technology, go the more business/management route, become a contractor etc lots of possibilities.

Also r.e. AI quite frankly writing the code is easy. Making it work in the broader context of functional requirements, security, maintenance etc is harder. Also most developers used IDEs that write a lot of the code for us. It's not actually going to reduce the number of jobs, it's going to allow us to focus on doing all the things that get pushed to the backlog and sometimes never get done because there's just no time!

In any case technical professions in tech are all about learning, and pivoting to different roles. There's no such things as a 'stable, never changing' profession in the modern world anyway.

You obviously missed the lol at the end of my message @Ozanj

Seriously though, as a Chief SW architect myself, I can tell you there's still going to be plenty of opportunities for coders in the industry - they're just going to be different from what they currently are

An excellent and very helpful post, IMO. Thank you, @Psspsspssssss

@Psspsspssssss that really is super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I suspect DD has made up her mind re a CS degree and not being in the IT sector it’s difficult to gauge how best to advise.

We visited CS at Cambridge this week. They want Astar Astar A but also Further Maths at A-Level is now compulsory if your school/college had it available
(Edited to remove the * created bold text!)

Did they mention anything about requiring an A* for Maths or FM?

No, the talk specifically mentioned that the 2A* didn't have to be in a particular subject

The Cambridge CS Entry Requirements page for 2025 says that 87% of entrants in 2023 and before Covid had 3 A stars and 97% had FM. No statistic for 2024 or the pandemic years is given. Usually Admissions makes careful choices about what information to provide .

Each college might be slightly different in their specifications as to which subjects they want the grades to be in. My ds’s offer did stipulate that one of the Astars was required to be for maths. As he was doing four A-levels, he could have failed further maths and still got in if he got the required grades for the other three subjects. Obviously, though, a candidate confident of an Astar for maths and a good TMUA result is highly unlikely to be one who flounders with further maths.

Also, looking at this page, all colleges will require an A* in either maths or in further maths, and some colleges will have other specific requirements with regards to subjects studied and results expected:

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/computer-science-ba-hons-meng

Cambridge colleges are quite individualistic - Oxford offers are more standardised by subject, regardless of college choice.