Why students are switching majors over AI — and what universities are missing
AI is driving students to second-guess and change their majors.
In a recent US poll by Gallup, 47% of enrolled students have considered switching majors “a great deal” or a “fair amount” over AI concerns.
16% have actually made the switch.
The students most concerned were those studying “technology” majors - so, likely, computer science students - accounting for 25% of switchers.
However, I wonder how much of this is driven by a lack of quality AI provision and/or students’ limited knowledge about how AI impacts careers? Yes, job postings on Indeed for software engineers dipped between 2024 and 2025, but have since rebounded (up about 11% year over year) and now outperform other sectors.
It turns out that coding wasn’t the only skill software engineers needed. Do students know this? Well, if they are switching majors, probably not.
Most don’t even have the right foundation to think about AI:
53% of students say their institution either discourages or prohibits AI use.
43% say training is insufficient, and that is reflected by AI’s most popular use cases:
1) To help understand complex material
2) To save time doing tasks
3) To get better grades
Pretty limiting.
There’s a difference between using AI to summarise material and having it create assets that demonstrate skills.
Only yesterday I was speaking with a marketing academic who’s used AI to change how he teaches branding. In addition to brand theory, he now gets students to use AI to apply concepts and rapidly build outcomes: positioning, messaging, campaigns.
Students share their projects with the class, discussing the choices they’ve made, cementing their understanding and, most importantly, sense of taste. They also have to defend their project against different stakeholders, like sales leads and finance directors, ensuring they can think on their feet.
The output isn’t essays, but projects that are tangible to employers hiring early career talent:
AI being used to create customer-facing assets
Use of AI to enhance communications
AI used to boost collaboration
I regularly read thought pieces on the value of critical thinking and human creativity in a post-AI world. To be clear, I don’t disagree with this POV, but there should be more focus on how those skills aren’t just transferable but evidenced.
This is the difference between critical thinking and critical doing.
It’s much easier for a graduate to demonstrate their value by showing an employer something they built with a skill that’s in demand (AI), rather than talking about it in the abstract and hoping swagger takes care of the rest.
We need experiences that give students permission to create with AI.
When it comes to getting hired, knowledge about AI won’t be the thing that sets students/graduates apart.
It will be what they can build with it.
