‘Degree or Certifications’ in the AI age

I wrote a post called ‘Certifications vs Degree‘ about 7 years ago.

I dissected the same topic of ‘Degrees’ or ‘Certifications’ then as well. While each have their merits and each is geared for a different purpose, I had concluded that ‘Certifications’ might be good for career growth and development then.

Today, as I see AI throwing a huge number of jobs into disarray, I am not very sure about it. My two pet peeves of programming and information security have been greatly affected by the AI wave. We do not need to explicitly know “programming” per se, to do “programming” today. ChatGPT, Claude and various other AI engines can do programming very well, if you just tell it what to do.

As an example, if you tell ChatGPT to write a code to “Add two numbers in Java”, it will do so promptly. You do not need to know how ChatGPT did it in Java though knowledge of Java and the way it is done will definitely help for other programs or if there any errors in the program. It is of course, good to know programming fundamentally to understand large legacy programs and just basically understand what is going on.

So, AI has reduced our dependence on basic programmers.

Now, Information Security is another field that is yet again been impacted by the AI wave. Just as cyber defenses are fortified by means of AI tools and measures, attackers are also using AI tools to automate multiple attacks. Information security jobs are undergoing a sea of transformation like other professions. Many jobs are being replaced or transformed into new jobs. New skills are needed to fill the new cyber security openings. While, the traditional cyber security concepts have not changed, it is the way to solve them that has undergone a transformation.

Since, AI is trampling its way across different professions, I would think that the basic degree is what is still holding tight. The fundamental concept of studying about operating system, compiler, the basic architecture of computers, the circuit boards are still the same in this AI age. As such the degree hasn’t changed and the core concepts haven’t changed much.

With technology changing its strides every 5-10 years, is it really a good idea to bet on certifications? Plus, certifications of today cost quite a lot and it is a lot to maintain them too. You can bank on them for a period of 5 – 10 years after which they become obliterated….

So, in this age, I would think that a degree is a safer bet than certifications that come and go by if you look at it in the long term…..

This post is for alphabet ‘O’ for BlogchatterA2Z by @blogchatter