The old playbook is fading
A large part of India sees education as its vehicle out of poverty, and for a long time that vehicle came with clear directions. In many streams the path was defined. You would go to your seniors and they would tell you how it works. It was a set playbook: you followed it, and you had to land in the top quartile to achieve your goals, especially if the goal was placements.
A playbook like that only works while the world it describes holds still long enough for a senior's experience to stay useful to a junior. With the world changing this fast, it may no longer be relevant. What is definitely required now is the agility to keep figuring out your path while building towards things at the same time.
AI sits at the center of that shift. It is going to be as hygiene as the internet - not a specialized skill from here on, but the way of doing work. The sooner you adapt to it, the better.
Why I'd still say stay in college
Dropping out sounds cool. For most students, though, continuing is the better option. Most students who are in college today are there because it was the path that made sense for them. Before leaving, I'd want to be clear about the alternative I was choosing and whether I could afford that path. And if you're thinking of changing your path right now, be sure it isn't a knee-jerk reaction to everything you're hearing about AI.
It also helps to be clear about what college is actually for. If you're deciding whether college is for you, first understand why you want to be there. A three or four year degree keeps you focused, at that life stage, on one subject area or discipline. Without that structure, it's easy to get distracted by too many things and not end up doing anything.
Then there is everything you pick up along the way. You create new connections, and working with people is an essential skill in itself. The curriculum makes you study a variety of subjects - some you like, some you don't - and the evaluation system pushes you to at least a bare minimum proficiency in each. In your comfort subjects you'll excel anyway. In the others, you have to find your way out and clear those exams, and that prepares you for a different kind of skill. And then there are friends and the network, which leads to an alumni network, and a lot of fun as well.
That's why I think college is still relevant - as of now, at least.
How I'd study differently
We are in an era of information abundance, and that changes what studying should emphasize. Anything that requires rote learning, or even formulas, deserves less of your focus. What deserves more is the actual physical significance of a concept in real life, and the impact of implementing it.
I would get students to work through judgement and scenarios. If they acted in a certain way, what could happen? If they acted differently, what could happen? And just like we used to have open-book exams, I would want an open-LLM exam.
The point of that isn't to lean on AI for answers. Students should realize where AI falters, where their own point of view is actually superior to AI, and where AI helps uncover blind spots they wouldn't have seen.
What hiring managers actually look for
From a hiring manager's standpoint, I don't think a lot has changed. We used to hire on a person's problem-solving ability, general cognition, and whatever relevant experience the job demanded. I, in particular, also emphasize structured thinking a lot. Those aspects still matter.
There is one addition, though. If I was conducting an interview today, and someone can demonstrate that they can build things with the help of AI - or that they've used AI to pick up an ancillary skill beyond their core role - that gives them a slight edge in my view, if all other things are equal.
What I'd tell my 18-year-old self
Find your niche, your strength, and build it at the same time. The way I think about it, that comes down to a combination of three things. There is the discipline you are interested in and passionate about, the one you feel you understand the most - keep building depth there. There is AI fluency. It's going to be like the internet, so there is no option on that; the real question is what tangential extra skills you can acquire because of it. And then you marry those two with whatever your genuine strength is - negotiation, persuasion, debating, coding, anything.
The combination of these three builds a strong package of strength, and that's what makes you stand out. You don't need to stand out in terms of a rank. Many people will build their own individual packages, and that's what they will stand for in the future.
The one mistake to avoid
If there is one thing to avoid through all of this, it's outsourcing to AI. That's the gravest mistake you can make.
On the worry about entry-level roles disappearing, it's worth being precise. Industries are moving at different paces. A lot of what people say is true for one set of industries, which is largely tech. For others, there is still a time window where you can do the work that has not yet been replaced by AI, and use AI as a challenger and a coach. That time window exists across industries, even at that level.
That's roughly what I'd tell my cousin too. Stay in college, know why you're there, and build your package.