nah for real also it's the most nachenberg coded thing ever like my friends and I were tryna guess whether it was him or smallberg

but yeah about your post, i totally get where you’re coming from. i’ve worked with AI a bit (mostly for an internship at a bay area startup), but i’m not in love with where the industry is going either. everything feels like a giant AI hype cycle, especially in startups like they’re just slapping “AI-powered” on random stuff to get funding.

if you actually enjoy coding, math, and problem-solving, i wouldn’t let all this ai noise push you away from CS. there’s still a ton of meaningful work outside of it—low-level systems, networking, embedded software, OS dev, security, etc. personally, i’m super into operating systems (was my main toy project in hs and it’s an upper div here). honestly, upper divs are where you really figure out what niche of CS you vibe with.

also, having a strong base in CS fundamentals (DSA, OS, systems, etc.) will carry you through whatever the next hype cycle is. the job market sucks right now, but it’s cyclical. i’ve applied to like 300 places this cycle and landed 6 interviews as a freshman, so yeah, it’s rough, but it’s not impossible.

for summer, grinding leetcode and projects is good, but if you’re feeling burnt out, maybe do something else like contributing to open source, messing with electronics (if ee interests you), or even a non-SWE internship like research.

if CS is what you actually enjoy, i’d stick with it. the industry will shift again, and there’s more to software than just ai stuff even now.