“I wouldn't talk them out of it, but I wouldn't treat CS as a default either. I started at Stanford CS because I loved making things, not because I had a master plan, and that curiosity carried me from Google Maps to Polyvore to Sequoia. The real question is whether your kid wants to build, or just wants the credential.”

“I wouldn't talk them out of it. I taught AP Computer Science and saw kids light up when a line of code finally did what they meant; the ones who stuck with it were the ones who actually enjoyed the puzzle, not the ones chasing a salary.”

“I would not talk them out of it. I taught computer science in rural Illinois schools and saw kids who had no other path suddenly have one, including mine. CS pays well, but the real win is the optionality: they can build, automate, or walk away from a 9-to-5 later if they want.”

“I wouldn't talk them out of it, but I'd push them to find the human problem inside the code. I studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford because I wanted both halves, and my best students come from CS, SymSys, art, and psychology, not from any single pipeline.”

“If they can do math, computer science is the closest thing we have to a global passport, and I say that as someone whose EE degree forced me to self-teach most of the CS I actually used. The real edge is pairing it with statistics, writing, and enough history to understand what people actually do in groups.”

“I would not talk them out of it, but I would warn them that the field is being rewritten by AI faster than universities are updating their syllabi. I have watched brilliant students graduate fluent in theory and still struggle to ship a real product, because the job now rewards adaptability and building with AI, not just the degree.”

“I taught high school computer science at St. Anne’s-Belfield and ran a data-science cohort that placed students into internships, so I’ve watched kids light up when code stops being homework and starts being agency. Don’t talk them out of it; ask whether they want to build things, because CS is just a toolset, and the ones who love the building survive the grind.”

“I wouldn't talk them out of it. I studied computer science at Portsmouth, then did a PGCE, and I've been a teacher ever since, but that CS background is what let me build Zip Captions and actually understand the tools I push in classrooms.”

“Don't talk them out of it. When I was studying CS in 2005, people told me outsourcing to India would kill programming jobs. The same misconception is happening with AI now. Coding is more art than people think, and the demand for great programmers keeps going up.”