Is AI affecting the future for our young generation?
It looks like it:
College students are changing their majors due to AI!
Nearly half of college students say they’ve spent a meaningful amount of time thinking about changing their major because of AI, and about 1 in 6 have already done it. That’s a pretty aggressive response to something that, at least so far, hasn’t actually played out in the way people keep describing it.
Share of students who changed their studies due to AI (share of all students):
Vocational - 26%
Technology - 25%
Business - 19%
Engineering - 18%
Social sciences - 17%
Humanities - 13%
Healthcare - 9%
Natural sciences - 9%
The source of this information is Axios.
If you look at what AI can do right now, it’s not replacing jobs in clean, obvious chunks. It’s just getting better at pieces of them. Now I have to admit that this interesting information is not from the Philippines. But I am sure, students in the Philippines are also worried about the influence of AI on their studies, as you will see further down in my column.
Students don’t really have the luxury of waiting to see how that this shakes out. If you’re in school in here just right now, you’re making decisions based on what you think the market will look like in a few years, not what it looks like today. And right now, the signal you’re getting is a mix of “learn this immediately” and “this entire category of work might not exist,” often in the same conversation. That shows up in the data. Students in tech and vocational tracks — the ones closest to all of this — are the most likely to reconsider what they’re doing. At the same time, employers are already asking about AI skills far more than they were even a year ago, which only reinforces the idea that you need to adjust early.
Colleges are kind of split on it. Some are pushing students to use AI; others are still discouraging it, leaving people to figure it out on their own anyway. So…you ultimately get this weird timing mismatch where the job market is still in transition, but the people heading into it are already making decisions like that transition has fully happened. Whether that ends up looking smart or premature just depends on how fast things actually change.
While these trends and the numbers were collected in the US, I am sure that the youngsters here are also worried about what AI is going to do to their studies and the selections of topics they have chosen.
At the heart of the agenda is the idea of ‘re-industrialization’: Existing industrial capabilities are to be shifting towards AI, biotechnology, quantum computing, and novel materials – leading to business models that don’t even exist yet.
Given the focus on the Knowledge Industry, we have to embrace AI or be left behind. Consequently, it is not enough to teach our students how to use AI. We must teach them how to ask better questions, synthesize information, and create original thoughts with it. To meet the global competition, the Philippine education system must evolve to meet this challenge. We must invest in training teachers to harness AI tools in the classroom and build curriculum around using AI responsibly, not just consuming it passively.
Please understand that your future of work is already being shaped in classrooms, long before the first job begins. As I have outlined in many articles before, it starts with internships and ‘learning by doing’. Students will have to test what they know against what the potential employers demand.
Instead of asking whether AI will replace us, the better question is, how do we harness it in the ways that empowers us to become ready to thrive with AI.
In conclusion, let’s support our youngsters to make the right decision. You don’t have to become a coder or engineer. But you do need to become tech-literate. Tech-literate youngsters ask smarter questions, follow business trends locally and internationally and take innovation seriously.
I am super interested in your views regarding this topic; please contact me at [email protected]
- Latest
