I’m a senior in high school right now and definitely need to consider what I’m going to do in college and for work.
For a very long time I’ve been into computers, and am a developer with a few big projects under my belt (this is a burner account for privacy). So, my logical choice for a while was to become a software developer professionally.
Nowadays that plan doesn’t look too promising. AI has basically replaced junior developers (with dubious results) and the competition has gotten much fiercer. I’m not even in college yet so I have a good amount of time to potentially pivot to something else before choosing a major.
I’ve got quite a bit of experience with Linux and I manage a home server, but that probably doesn’t differentiate me much. I’m honestly interested in most things computer related, but don’t know of any specific fields to seek out. If it’s so hard for fresh CS graduates to get jobs, why would any other option be different?
Depends on scholarship/FAFSA.
College still will give you connections. Maybe you will want to look into research positions in CS later after meeting a few professors too.
Also useful to have people your age in your field just around. Could get really into a subfield like robotics or IoT through it.
But if you don’t have any scholarship, and you live in US with a $8000/sem prices, then I don’t think it’s worth loans.
Hope this helps!