to all the new guys joining B.Tech this year
I have seen so many posts regarding whether cse is dead or not, which branch to take, and other stuff, so i want to share my 2 cents regarding this issue.
I just completed my second year in IISc (branch is mnc).
So first of all, this is all my opinion and is limited by my experience and what I have learnt so far.
Second, it's always best to take advice from a person who is actively working in the said branch.
I will mainly be talking about cse, mnc and ece since I know little to nothing about other branches.
cse,mnc and ece are not going to die anytime soon, but at the same time the landscape is clearly changing. Both my parents are software engineers, so I am saying this with first hand experience.
the number of regular webdev, frontend, backend engineer roles are going to decrease and will be slowly replaced by the ai counterpart roles, so you have to adapt to that.
But at the same time, they will not dissappear. So as long as you are the cream of the crop and are much above your peers, you will still get a job.
But in this era, it's much more important to develop a niche skill that cannot be easily found. Ai can do shit, but you still need a person to verify all that shit. Don't be afraid to use ai (but you need to learn where and when to use ai obviously).
Also cse is a relatively chill course, so you will have a lot of time to explore, do leetcode and shit, build projects, etc.
as for ece and mnc guys, i personally think these are the best branches in this era, although there is one disadvantage and that is, the course load. With cse, you can actively pursue your hobbies/interests/ build projects and all, but with ece and mnc, you won't have much time.
But there is an advantage as well. They are the most flexible branches, due to the content they learn.
Once you learn the fundamental subjects, so many paths are open to you: electronics, signal processing, deep generative models, theoretical ml, computer vision etc. which you will not learn in cse.
This comes to my next point.
Higher studies: I think the future will be much more generous to people who delve deeper into their subjects.
Take ai in general, so many top companies right now are pouring their money into ai research and this will continue for at least another decade, and all the reseearch will be done by mtechs/phds/ profs of universities. And ai itself is not an independent field, its a collaboration of linear algebra, systems, theoretical ml, dsa, a bit of analysis, etc.
All in all, I want to say before making your decision, talk to as many people as possible, especially people who are really good at their work. The branch that you choose will definitely not define your future, but it will define at least the next 4 years.
P.S., for people going to T1 universities, pay attention to your classes, I do not understand why no one ever says this, but the professors in good universities are incredibly good, they are like a treasure trove of knowledge, and most of the content will definitely not be found in online lectures.
cse is not simply coding, in fact its not even coding, our country is completely fucked up because it associates cse with coding. coding is merely a tool, there is so much else to look at. Automata theory, systems, cybersecurity, cryptography, machine learning, game theory, hpc.. I can't even list them fully.
In my opinion, if you do not have any financial issues/ family commitments, spend these 4 years rediscovering yourself, because jee did a lot of brain damage. Not saying the rat race is over (infact it will never end), but carefully see and understand what you enjoy, because every field is vast and there will definitely be something you are good at and will like it.
Because at the end of the day, if you are good at what you do, getting money will be the least of your concerns.
EDIT1: I think its really important to mention that you should check the course syllabus and the subjects taught as well, because the same course in different colleges teach different stuff, if you don't understand what a subject means, ask gemini or watch a short youtube video