Paulette DesCoteaux sent her daughter, Kendra, off to college three years ago with broad advice: Get good grades and have fun. But as she learned more about AI’s growing impact on the job market, her advice changed.
Get hyperfocused on networking, double major and land a job, DesCoteaux now says.
“You don’t know which lever you’re going to have to pull,” says DesCoteaux, who is steeped in artificial intelligence in her own job at a logistics company.
The AI boom’s effect on the job market for young adults is creating new anxiety for parents. Many don’t know how to advise teens on what to study in college—or whether to even go.
Computer science isn’t the safe bet it used to be, so a lot of students are majoring in business, says Allison Slater Tate, director of college counseling at a private prep school in Florida. “There’s a panic over careers and employment,” she says. “Everyone is looking for a guarantee.”
She and other experts say students should consider liberal arts degrees because employers value critical thinking skills. For some, the future of work has never been less clear.
“The most important thing we can advise kids to do is to learn how to learn and how to think, because the only thing we can do over computers is to be human,” Slater Tate says. She sees growing demand for philosophy and art history majors in banking and elsewhere as companies seek workers who can apply critical thinking across disciplines.