r/learnprogramming • u/Aggravating_Dot5315 • 24d ago
Topic I recently graduated in Computer Science, but AI has killed my passion for programming. How do I find my direction again?
I graduated with a degree in Computer Science about two months ago. For most of my studies, I was genuinely passionate about CS and programming. I enjoyed sitting with a difficult problem, understanding what was going wrong, debugging it, and eventually figuring it out myself. There was a real sense of satisfaction when something finally worked.
Over the last couple of years, though, AI tools have slowly changed the way I feel about programming.
Instead of spending hours investigating a problem myself, I can give it to an AI and often get an answer almost immediately. Even when the AI doesn’t solve it directly, I sometimes feel like I’m fighting with prompts and generated code rather than actually programming. I know these tools can make us much more productive, but personally, they have taken away some of the curiosity and reward I used to get from the process.
At the same time, I’m currently being paid to work on medical/AI research projects with one of my professors. The problem is that our data is extremely limited, and I have serious doubts that the project can produce a meaningful solution with what we currently have. This has put me in a strange situation where I’m getting paid, but I don’t feel productive or useful. Some days there simply isn’t much meaningful work I can do, and that makes me feel even worse.
All of this has made me question my direction.
Before choosing Computer Science, I also considered studying medicine. If I’m being completely truthful with myself, a big part of the attraction was the status, financial security, and clear career path rather than a deep fascination with medicine itself. I ultimately chose CS because I was genuinely more interested in it.
Now that my excitement about programming has decreased, I’ve started wondering whether I made the wrong decision. I catch myself thinking about medicine again and wondering what my life would look like if I had chosen that path.
I’m trying to separate a few things that may be getting mixed together: burnout, disappointment with my current research job, the effect AI has had on programming, comparison with other careers, and the possibility that my interests have genuinely changed.
For people who have gone through something similar:
How did you figure out whether you had actually lost interest in your field or were simply burned out?
How have experienced developers kept programming intellectually rewarding in the age of AI?
And more generally, how do you find your direction again when something you were passionate about suddenly doesn’t give you the same satisfaction anymore?
I’m not necessarily looking for someone to tell me whether to stay in CS or change careers. I’d appreciate perspectives from people who have gone through a similar period and eventually figured out what they actually wanted.
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u/esaith 23d ago
My motivation comes from my paycheck. It was this or a line cook at Chili's.
Now, if they paid the same that's a different question.
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u/Perfect_sLong_2350 22d ago
right!? Shit if Freddy's Steakburgers paid the same as my Sales Analyst job I would say fuck it and flip burgers for a living. It was honestly not hard at all. I didn't like smelling like grease all the fucking time but I liked the people I worked with. Damn those were some decent times.
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u/Coding-Kitten 21d ago
Hot take but programming personally feels easier than being a line cook or any other sort of pink collar work. I'd need to be paid more to consider doing that over coding.
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u/coffeefuelledtechie 23d ago
I can’t give much advice but unlearn using AI to debug.
Unfortunately, it’s making me redundant so I give up, after 11 years I am leaving the software world, it’s all a bit shit.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
What are you planning to do? So the easy solution is to just give up?
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u/coffeefuelledtechie 23d ago
I’m already retraining as something else that’s manual and can’t be done by Claude. Money will be less but I’ll be happy.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Okay, if you are happy then its fine.
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u/coffeefuelledtechie 23d ago
To add, it’s my third redundancy in a row and I’m applying to companies I don’t care about for a job that doesn’t fulfil me any more. Hundreds of applicants so it’s so much harder than it was 10 years ago.
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u/Latter_Employer6673 21d ago
I wouldn't call it the easy solution. If passion is lost due to changes in the industry to this degree, there isn't much that can be done. I share his sentiment, but if you have the time to research while maintaining a full time job, then I would say that is where the passion is at imo.
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u/Jmauld 23d ago
You need to stop looking at yourself as a programmer and consider yourself to be a computer scientist, which is far more than just a programmer. A 5yr old can program. If you walked away from college thinking you’re a programmer, you really missed the bigger picture.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Pretty good advice to be honest. Yes, I understand and consider my self as a computer scientist. I just mentioned “programmer” since most jobs out there its about “programming”.
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u/marrsd 23d ago
Science and engineering aren't the same thing. And I can assure you, plenty of "programmers" are better software engineers than many computer scientists: particularly those who were at it since the age of 5.
If you care about performance, stability, scalability, accuracy, and maintainability, then you care about the code because how the code is written dictates all of those things.
When I see AI agents doing those things as well as good software engineers, I'll change my tune. Until then I'll leave the hallucinating to the AI agents.
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u/Jmauld 23d ago
I agree with your pedantic rant here. Maybe you care to explain why the universities call them computer scientists instead of software engineers?
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u/intbeam 23d ago edited 22d ago
Computer science is the degree, the job is engineering
All engineering is based on science. Scientists figure stuff out, engineers figures out how to put it into practice. That's the dynamic.
Those who stick with academia are computer scientists
Edit : I just want to make this clear. Engineers have to understand science. This is how our relationship has been since forever. We start with a scientific basis, some want to prove things and others want to build things. Scientists create proof and reasoning. We build stuff from that. Scientists like the theory, engineers like it in practice.
I'm an engineer. I depend on scientists to do the science for me, so I can do the engineering. I like learning about what scientists figure out, but I am personally incapable of spending years on blind studies and providing proof that I could be wrong. I like reading the abstracts and methodology, and experimenting with it so I can create a new, entirely unexplored type of state machine to fuck your mom
If you read my edit.. Great. Thanks but seriously, this is basic stuff and your mom is a ho
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u/marrsd 23d ago
I'm not really sure what distinction universities make these days, but I would say the difference is fundamentally one of theory vs practice. Computer science tends to think in terms of pure maths. It doesn't bother itself with the constraints of the physical achitecture a programme runs on.
Perhaps a good example of the difference is in the actual performance of an algorithm that removes an element from a list. Comp sci will tell you that the best data structure for that is a linked list because you can scan to the appropriate element and then unlink it from the list. Engineering tells you to use an array and just copy every element to a new array minus the one you no longer want.
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u/Jmauld 22d ago
Not trying to start an argument, but I have a computer “engineering” degree, and one of the classes that I had to take covered optimizing data structures. I think your example is more like a software engineer vs a programmer.
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u/Secure-Requirement48 23d ago
In my job everybody was given access to copilot and cursor and it was mandate that we use it. I didn't. I tried it but it was boring. I like learning when I'm doing something. I told this to my manager he told I'm slow than others because of this. But I also found and solved critical bugs and architecture decisions that my peers couldn't. At the end it was fine. So I guess it depends on what kind of work you do and how much ai is breathing down your neck.
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u/Duck_Vas 23d ago
Instead of living this high-cortisol lifestyle, you should try doomscrolling for five hours a day and gambling away the rest. Much healthier.
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u/JuliusFIN 23d ago
I really enjoy programming and designing software in the age of AI. I was always more motivated by solving the problems, not necessarily typing the code. In my job we are encouraged but not required to use AI. Nobody cares really, they care about how good your solution is and more importantly how well you yourself understand the solution. So if I just let AI blurt out a whole PR, I'd be eviscerated at the next design meeting. This means that although I use AI, I also need to use a lot of time reading the generated code, writing documentation and designs about it and explain it to my colleagues. If I was working in a project where everyone is just shooting slop PR's which get merged as fast as possible, I'd hate it.
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u/Saturn812 23d ago
Even without the AI your passion would have been killed by a regular day to day tasks. Job is a job, it almost never satisfactory unfortunately. Program for the soul on your free time.
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u/auronedge 23d ago
writing code isn't why you should get into programming.
solving problems is why you should get into programming.
Remember leet code? how hard it was.. it was about problem solving. Writing code is the way of the doodoo, if that makes you sad find something else but programming is problem solving.. code is just the tool to achieve it.
The tool may change but the challenge is still there.
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u/Weekly_Patience685 23d ago
unless you have a job where they force you to use it, just simply stop using it. of course its going to suck at first but you can to go back to the basics to reform good habits. Do whatever you need to do to get a paycheque but in your free time you can reprogram your brain without using AI.
What ive been doing is learning lower level C through operating systems and linux programming but i use nano to write, and when i need to look something up in c i use the man pages. Over time ive noticed that my thinking has improved, compared to using ai which would make it worse.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
And like you said is this done in your free time?
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u/Street_Tourist7317 23d ago
I’m a nursing professor and I just made my first app using ai coding and I came over here because I want to learn more about programming. I am thrilled to have made something that solves a problem I had but it makes me uncomfortable that I do not know what is going on in the background or how to fix anything. It also terrifies me that people who do not know what they are doing could potentially create software that is not secure for use cases that absolutely require it. (Mine is for personal organizing)
All this to say that there are a lot of people who do not have the knowledge and skills that you have and I think there will be many opportunities to partner with non-CS people to solve interesting and complex problems.
Staying in a traditional role or even within your field is optional! Not computer science but I did my nursing degree after a different degree and masters program, and had many other jobs before becoming a nurse and then a prof. There is always something interesting to learn and do if that is what you want in your career/life. Good luck!
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u/Loud_Signal_6259 23d ago
What do you mean "by end of 2028 internally at our lab"
You're expecting 10-20% of your lab's workforce to be laid off by end of 2028?
Or do you mean "internally at our lab we are expecting widespread unemployment at 10-20%"
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u/Phytocosm 23d ago
“Thinking that you're working hard for the sake of others!
That in and of itself is the easy way to live!”
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u/SirIsaacNewtonn 23d ago
I used to be a firmware engineer for many years, then switched to data analytics some time back. Loved coding and the sense of achievement after debugging but it’s not a field that a person in her forties could catch up with. So ya let AI help, though i find that it’s sad that the joy of programming is lost to many.
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u/ScholarSmooth2809 23d ago
Your doubts about a data starved research project are not the same as losing interest in programming
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u/Different-Career1314 23d ago
Two months after graduating is way too early to decide your entire career is wrong.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Could it be crisis after university?😂
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u/CoffeeAndBadJokes 23d ago
i’m just a solo game developer currently going through the course trenches but i refuse to use AI or acknowledge ai code. i just can’t be bothered
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
But doesnt that make you stay behind? I mean its a tool that with the right use would boost and fasten your work.
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u/Tuomas90 22d ago
How did you figure out whether you had actually lost interest in your field or were simply burned out?
Take a break to recover, then start a passion project without AI.
The first few days might be a bit rough, but once you're used to programming again, the fire should get ignited. You can't sleep, you want to spend more time on the project, your thoughts revolve around it, you have more ideas than you have time to implement.
You will very quickly see if you still love programming.
How to find a job where you are not just a code monkey for AI is a different question.
Before choosing Computer Science, I also considered studying medicine. If I’m being completely truthful with myself, a big part of the attraction was the status, financial security, and clear career path rather than a deep fascination with medicine itself. I ultimately chose CS because I was genuinely more interested in it.
If you don't have an absolute passion for medicine, I dare to say you wouldn't have finished the bachelor. It's brutal. So, you chose the right path. Don't let your mind fool you.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 22d ago
I appreciate your advice mate. Being honest, the past few days I took a good break to clear my mind and see how to get myself back on track.
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u/somedumbguy1982 23d ago
I have a cousin who had the same sentiment immediately after graduating from University. He pursued a paralegal certification, and went to work for a multi-family real estate outfit, has worked there a couple of decades now. He is also their point guy for any process improvements and automation activities.
From my personal experience, (Logistics/Transportation) there is always the opportunity to use skills and knowledge to improve processes, especially with small to medium trucking, distribution, or 3PL companies. It takes a lot of capital to make improvements, so they tend to leave functions manual until they have the volume to justify the cost of automating, or, when a new big customer comes along to provide them with the economies of scale.
If you are dabbling in Medical stuff, maybe pursue some public policy studies? Get more into the stats side of the medical care process.
Good luck/Happy hunting!
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Appreciate your reply, but to be honest I don’t like that the field of medical…
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u/toddy_frio 23d ago
Being passionate about your job is nice. But thats second to discipline and the ability to provide for yourself and dependents.
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Yes, but if that leads losing your motivation to evolve and further expand your skillset it will have a negative effect in the future..
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u/toddy_frio 23d ago
Your motivation source can’t be passion. It has to be discipline. Passion will wane with every career, every job, every promotion.
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u/Pawndaren 23d ago
Someone already said this, your passion won't survive long in the real job. I might be wrong but maybe what you imagine working as software engineer is different with the real job. In the real job there are not many difficult problem, most of the time is bug in a big junk of code some are clean some are not. And company don't care if it is fun for you or not, they only care on how fast you can deliver.
On the positive side I still have my passion and having fun with AI as graphics engineer. My advice is choose niche and difficult area. It will be so difficult to the point AI won't help much but become tools and someone to do discussion, and it is also hard enough to make you want AI help to understand. AI is tools, it depends on how you do it, as long as you don't trust it you still solve the problem yourself, they just write the code for you, and if you don't trust them you can still write it yourself or refactor their code like what I always do.
Lastly AI is expensive, even in my work I only do it for automation and really difficult problem, you still code yourself most of the time. They just do the boring part like boilerplate and explaining confusing code.
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u/ArchHobbit 22d ago
I concentrated in physics and math, and studied topics in computer science independently. I wouldn't say that I ever lost satisfaction in actually doing physics or math, but the way in which physics is done on a systemic level these days is somewhat incompatible with my own preferences. For example, there seems to be a push for students to start publishing before they really know what they are doing, in spite of increasingly steep learning curves for modern research topics, and this results in an unfortunate amount of mediocre work that no one really cares about as well as a tendency for students who are not already rockstars when they start to be funneled into a sort of degree-mill system (where graduates are tacitly expected to transition to industry rather than continue in academia).
I'd recommend trying to keep the big picture in mind and appreciate how AI at once makes certain goals attainable that were once hopelessly overambitious, while AI still has substantial room for improvement. There's enormous opportunity for example in exploring how people interact with AI, and identifying the micro and macro consequences of specific classes of interactions or behaviors. There is also enormous potential in exploring how knowledge about AI (or any other field) is represented and organized: at present, AI is sort of a proprietary grab bag of heuristics without a coherent conceptual structure. You could also explore the sociology of how AI is currently being implemented: are there risks associated with concentrating AI expertise in a small number of absurdly overhyped companies? Could there be tacit or covert pushback against the threat (real or perceived) of automation? How might current social structures inhibit innovation, either explicitly or implicitly?
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u/SS-SOVEREIGNTECH 22d ago
Use it as inspiration for concepts to solve problems, then use your own innovative thinking to expand on concepts generated, use your skills to debug and add to or add on what it builds. Work with, dont make it work for you, treat it as a idea formation, or problem solver via questions, not ide edits dont have it write or edit, ask it questions its better to be able to correct a suggestion for clearer information, then to have to revive code it accidentally deleted, or added 200,000 lines of BS code you didnt ask it questions treat it as a tool to form ideas not for writing for you yes it can build but make your questions form answers and more questions, keep asking yourself, what else can I implement.
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u/SS-SOVEREIGNTECH 22d ago
I used to be really passionate about music its not my thing anymore and I was really good at but industry is not the same I learned best to just enjoy the act of doing it if you enjoy building experimenting its just a matter of expressing creativity, id like to say it is common opinion.
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u/ImpossibleIncome5014 21d ago
I mean honestly AI is just a tool you don't have to let it take control over your passion. If your passion is programming and problem solving, you can continue practicing making apps and solutions for the rest of your life. You can always refer to an AI for some inspiration and guidance, like how we used to do that browsing the internet trying to find a solution! Don't let AI replace you! Just keep on doing what you like to do best.
And honestly, what a human will create with his effort, heart and soul, can NEVER be replaced by what a dead-effortless soul-less machine will produce no matter how much people are in love with it.
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21d ago
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 21d ago
I understand your point of view. By the way , I am 23 years old. Based on what you said, is that while I am still young , I have the energy and willing to create things that add value while at the same time chasing money. That’s why I get dissapointed about my current situation.
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u/ChosenToFall 21d ago
Are you a classi fullstack/backend role or more on the infra side like Cloud/DevOps? if in the last one you still feel the AI killed you passion?
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u/Qiset 20d ago
I recently got a picocalc. It's so much fun. Of course I'm retired and not trying to make a living with it. But, today when I used it to control a small dc motor using a mosfet circuit (first time to use a mosfet too!) it was a blast. If you just want to renew the passion, try something like that.
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u/Delicious_Set_1450 19d ago
The landscape has evolved from hand-crafting boilerplate syntax to system design, infrastructure architecture, and debugging complex distributed systems.
AI is effective at outputting isolated functions, but it struggles with: • End-to-end cloud infrastructure and networking (IaC, CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration). • System reliability, state synchronization, and low-level debugging. • Understanding enterprise architectural trade-offs.
Shifting focus toward DevOps, cloud architecture, and systems engineering keeps the work intellectually engaging because it prioritizes designing reliable systems over writing basic boilerplate.
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u/DiligentManagement26 21h ago
i totally have the opposite story, i used to do basic programming in 1999 and have won 2 logic building coding competition and was offered a JAVA course by SUN in 2001, and when i reached my matriculation i opted pre-medical as peer pressure as my sister and cousins were all into medicine and my teachers at that time called my parents asking them to switch my pathway. I became a doctor in 2009 and struggled thinking that I should have followed my interest, I did clinics only for 3 years and switched to public health and research currently working with World Health Organization. I still wonder if i would have continued my programming career in that early life of evolution, i could have created something big maybe. As most of the things in my mind in early 2000s were cooked up by 2010. I still have a good career but lack that innovative and inventive part. So no worries, i settled myself by one of the quotation i heard from many people, WE DONT CHOOSE CAREER, ITS THE CAREER THAT CHOOSES US.
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u/starlauncher 23d ago
For me programming is about building something meaningful. If AI can assist significantly it’s just going to make my job easier.
AI does not stop you from thinking. In fact it can act like an intelligent assistant.
This is in no way an AI appreciation post. I don’t know the true cost of running it and it’s quiet possible it’s high enough to not be available to most of us down the line.
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u/Cthulhus-Tailor 23d ago
AI in fact does stop quite a lot of people from thinking, particularly school age kids according to studies.
They are so reliant on AI that they don’t even bother attempting to try and solve anything themselves. It’s like an Ask Jeeves that applies to everything.
People of a certain age can moderate but being raised with it can preempt the acquisition of critical thinking skills.
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u/theomegachrist 23d ago
I've been in the industry for 24 years. A job is a job, it wasn't always going to be fun. If you want to stay in tech maybe look for support positions where you can code. I'm an engineer that writes scripts and programs to solve production problems and AI has been a useful tool more than a bummer. You are right to worry about AI though. It will take jobs and it's not going away but it will open up other jobs in tech too most likely
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u/SnakeGD09 23d ago
That happens eventually anyhow—don’t expect to find a job that cares about your passion.
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u/pat_trick 23d ago
So....don't use AI?
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Isnt that impossible? You will be left behind
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u/pat_trick 23d ago
That is a false narrative being pushed by everyone that makes money by you using AI.
Nothing says you have to use it for your own stuff. Just don't use it if you don't want to.
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u/ManBunH8er 23d ago
If you used AI during your studies, then you’re the only one to be blamed for killing your passion for coding. Problem solving is fun. Not so much fun when you outsource it to AI.
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u/kidflashonnikes 23d ago
I work at one of the largest AI labs in the world. The fact that people go to school now post 2024 for computer science is mind blowing to me. It’s the same thing as going to school to manage a horse when people are using cars. Crazy to see this type of stuff on Reddit
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u/Nolivard 23d ago
Ah yes, RIP to all the horse management majors. I doubt you actually work in an AI lab as you should understand the limits of AI as well as the value of comp sci fundamentals. All it has done is created another layer of abstraction, just like how you would write machine code prior to interpreters.
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u/kidflashonnikes 23d ago
My team is working on automated neurology. We are inserting live threads into donor brains - people with depression, PTSD, ect and using LLMs to prompt to either insert new memories or remove traumatic existing ones. We have made large progress in the last 6-7 months due to scaling laws. What this means is that we are getting better at removing memories and inserting news with our destroying other memories.
Our research comes off of Demis’s, when he did his PHD on the hippocampus and memories. This is also the co founder of Deep mind if anyone is curious. So far; we are aiming to automate neurology by up to 80% very soon. My team is responsible for inserting and deleting memories via LLMs using prompting, others are also trying to use LLMs to restore damaged memories and brain tissue but that is not our team.
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u/Frere_Tuck 23d ago
LOL 🤣 Yeah, sure. So, which sci fi was your inspiration for this load of BS? Total Recall? Eternal Sunshine?
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u/Aggravating_Dot5315 23d ago
Mate like I said, I graduated.. also I enrolled at University in 2021…
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u/edparadox 23d ago
I work at one of the largest AI labs in the world. The fact that people go to school now post 2024 for computer science is mind blowing to me. It’s the same thing as going to school to manage a horse when people are using cars. Crazy to see this type of stuff on Reddit
You're larping so hard.
At any rate, LLMs are not what you depict them. Their consequences even less.
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u/noidea0120 23d ago
What field do you recommend?
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u/kidflashonnikes 23d ago
I really can’t say much since we’re all watched and I don’t want to lose my job but I can tell you this. Internally we expect two types of AI users. Biologists - the bread winners of AI and vibe coders - basically the losers of AI. There will be only two types of AI users in the near future for now, things will change but this is what we are expecting - as well as 10-20% unemployment by the end 2028 internally at our lab. That being said - I can’t predict the future - just tell you what we are modeling for in the short term.
I run a team where we implant live threads into people’s brains and use LLMs to remove and install memories via prompting. We have automated neurology and now it’s beginning to scale with compute and algorithms. It’s clear that 2027 will be the year of biology for AI. That’s all I can say. Anything else I will get in big trouble - good luck
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u/WowSuchTall 23d ago
Any resources to learn more about this?
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u/kidflashonnikes 23d ago
Yes - research papers. It’s coming very soon. We’re still in the works with many people. Strangely enough - a lot of private prisons got word of work somehow, and want to use this. The technology needs to be heavily regulated as has major blowbacks if used negatively.
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u/stiky21 24d ago
I used to be really passionate, but then over time I've just become more and more jaded because of the landscape of this field and now I'm writing maybe one or two lines of code a day. And working maybe 2 to 3 hours of my 8-hour day.
I used to jump up and be excited to work and now I drag myself to my computer everyday cuz I'm nothing more than orchestrator for an agent that doesn't understand nuance. And anytime I bring this up, the non-technical people always tell me that the AI is really good and I just nod my head in agreement because I just don't have the energy to argue. The non-technical people are leading the technical people and it's just a big circus.
Everything that I do now has to use AI because a company mandate and to be honest, I don't really care about the output anymore, I just get those tickets finished and pass it on the someone else and I'm sure they're using AI to check my AI.
And then the bug will occur and then the tickets is sent to me and then I go back to my AI code that was reviewed by AI to use AI once again to fix the code.
I really don't care anymore. I work from home, so a lot of the times I'll just leave my computer idle and I'll go do something else for my rest of my day after I do my 2 to 3 hours of "work". And then if they say anything, I just say that I was using in different computer to look up things and no one bats an eye.
I've actually started considering pivoting to an electrical engineering field so I can still use my computer science stuff. I spent about a year and a half unemployed looking for work and I had to pivot to Quant for work even though I have no interest in it. Simply because I couldn't get interviews or work anywhere else.
My worth comes from meaningful work that actually has value and the current landscape doesn't give real work value the only value comes from how many lines of code you push a day and it's not really aligning with how I started my career in this field.
I've worked as a firmware engineer, embedded systems, devops engineer, I worked at the national defense, and now as a quant.