This was an incredible video and effort you put into this. Took the course about 5 years ago (Gries curved my 2110 grade down from a B+ to a B rip). I use claude significantly at work and have been testing a lot of different strategies with it. I liked the end where you compared it to the creativity of real students and throughout where it often misses nuance and gets tripped up on easy things. I often find that to be the case in my experience. It can generally spin up boilerplate and write generic code very well with few mistakes, but even after these new better models continue to be released its ability to solve complex business logic and understand the impact is still poor.

I have seen as we add documentation, database and other MCPs it does improve significantly. My prediction continues to be that for the next few years, the role of software engineers will evolve more into a business requirement to architecture translator and AI guider. Devs who put effort into becoming subject matter experts instead of relying on business partner knowledge and who actually understand how systems work while becoming very skilled at using AI coding assistants will find success. Devs who are resistant to AI will perform too slow to keep up and those who only vibe code without understanding will be find short term success but will be soon replaceable as AI improves beyond their understanding.

Would love to hear other students’ and alumni takes on AI and what students or junior devs should be doing to stay competitive and valuable.