Written by | Wild goose autumn
Edit | Lee Shin Ma
Title Picture | Wenxin is a style
Not long ago, the data of the "2023 College Entrance Examination Volunteer Report" released by Quark App shows that among the popular undergraduate majors this year, the three traditional popular majors of computer science and technology, law, and clinical medicine still firmly occupy the top three.
With the popularity of large models and generative AI, AI-related majors are on the rise. Among the top 10 popular majors, AI-related majors account for the largest proportion.
You know, the artificial intelligence professional craze didn't just start this year. The previous "2022 College Entrance Examination Search Big Data" shows that artificial intelligence has ranked first in the hot search list for college entrance examination majors for 3 consecutive years, and many candidates and parents are very willing to step on this outlet.
In fact, since 2019, when China officially listed artificial intelligence as an undergraduate major, more than 500 ordinary universities in mainland China have successfully registered artificial intelligence undergraduate majors. Especially since the Ministry of Education promoted the construction of new engineering courses, a total of 130 undergraduate colleges and universities have added artificial intelligence majors in 2021 alone. Some colleges and universities not only offer majors and colleges related to artificial intelligence, but also add artificial intelligence research directions in many disciplines, and many majors offer courses closely related to artificial intelligence.
The artificial intelligence major has obviously become a "sweet spot" sought after by colleges and universities and parents and students.
1. Good major = high income?
This year, Suifeng's (pseudonym) college entrance examination score exceeded the first line of Henan Province by more than 60 points, and he could apply for a 211. However, he was stuck in the voluntary application, and he didn't know what to apply for, and he didn't know which school to go to, "There are a lot to consider, school, major, geographical location, employment or something, it's difficult." Although there is no clear goal, Suifeng has filled in the artificial intelligence majors of several universities, including Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Hohai University, and Jinan University.
Talking about why he chose this major, Suifeng considered more about the employment direction in recent years: "I can often see artificial intelligence, and I have also learned about some employment prospects, such as robotics and the like. As for whether he will be engaged in the industry in the future, he didn't think much about it: "I may not be able to be admitted yet." ”
Like Suifeng, Muzi (not her real name) is also a prospective college student. Her grades are not too top-notch, and she can only choose between ordinary two colleges, but she has a clear goal for the major, and she also thinks that the artificial intelligence major is worth a try, "Science and engineering students have basically heard the teacher's sentence 'learn technology', so I still hope to be more technical when I apply for the major, and it will be easy to find a job in the future." ”
Muzi's mother told DoNews that her daughter's grades were within the expected range, and their parents' task was to help their children choose a "good major", "How difficult it is to find employment in this society now, good majors are more popular, and we also hope that for girls, she will not work too hard in the future, just find a similar one." ”
An important reason for the popularity of artificial intelligence majors is also their high salary returns in the market.
At present, enterprises with an early layout of AI talents in mainland China are basically concentrated in the Internet industry, and major companies such as ByteDance, Huawei, Tencent, and Baidu have attracted and retained first-class talents through relevant plans, and the salaries of related positions have risen.
According to the "2024 Spring Recruitment Market Weekly Report (Phase III)" previously released by Zhaopin, artificial intelligence engineers rushed to the first place in the list of monthly salaries for recruitment in the third week after the Spring Festival, with an average recruitment salary of 24,127 yuan per month, which is 1,292 yuan higher than the second chip engineer on average per month.
Subdivided into professional fields, natural language processing (NLP) is an important branch in the field of artificial intelligence, and the popularity of key positions in this field is gradually increasing. According to the "Hot Spot Report on the Talent Market in the First Quarter of 2024" released by Zhaopin.com, in the first quarter of this year, the number of recruited positions for natural language processing engineers increased by 126% year-on-year. At the same time, its average monthly salary reached 24,535 yuan, an increase of 12% from 21,933 yuan in the same period last year.
DoNews reporters also checked some recruitment websites, in Beijing, some artificial intelligence positions have a monthly salary of about 20,000 to 50,000, such as AI application software product manager monthly salary of 3 to 50,000, AI processor compiler engineer monthly salary of 3 to 60,000, which is limited to a bachelor's degree. Those who can get more than 50,000 yuan mostly require a master's or doctoral degree and a lot of research experience.
Source: Liepin
2. If the score is not enough, should I give up?
Although there are more and more colleges and universities offering artificial intelligence majors, they are still "in short supply" for a short time, or the faculty is average.
After learning about it, Muzi found that some of the universities he could choose did not offer this major, and although some did, the faculty was limited, and the background was not as strong as that of key universities. ”
Not long ago, in the college entrance examination information service media communication meeting held by Quark, Li Yongpei, former principal of Ningbo Middle School in Zhejiang Province and special physics teacher in Zhejiang Province, also said that artificial intelligence is a professional direction that has been slowly introduced in recent years, and some may also be a bit utilitarian.
"I remember that in 2018, the Ministry of Education launched 35 colleges and universities that could carry out the construction of artificial intelligence disciplines, and universities around the country followed suit. At present, there are many universities majoring in artificial intelligence, and there are still certain differences in the matching degree of talent and major construction, and there are not so many colleges and universities that can really run artificial intelligence. From the perspective of university majors, there must be many differences between the artificial intelligence of Peking University and the artificial intelligence of higher vocational education. ”
In this way, for those candidates who are not in key universities but are interested in artificial intelligence, they can only give up or make up their lives? Regarding this point, the UP master of station B "Brother Tongji Zihao" gave his own advice: self-study.
ZIHAO ZHANG IS CURRENTLY ENGAGED IN RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND HE ALSO SHOWCASED HIS TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENTS AT THE WAVE SUMMIT DEEP LEARNING DEVELOPER CONFERENCE 2024.
Referring to the popularity of artificial intelligence majors, Zihao told DoNews reporters at the scene that he switched from the "sinkhole" major of civil engineering to the direction of artificial intelligence, "You are looking for the right person." There was a bit of self-deprecation in his words, but more of a sense of satisfaction after achieving something.
"I studied civil engineering related majors in both undergraduate and graduate studies, which was actually quite successful, but I accidentally found that one of my graduation designs was exactly the same as the graduation design of our seniors 20 years ago, and there was no change at all, which means that all new outlets have nothing to do with you, so I came up with the idea of changing careers."
Self-study is not easy. Zihao said that artificial intelligence is a very high threshold thing, which needs to go through mountains of mathematics, programming, algorithms, etc., as well as a sea of papers.
"When I first learned Pythons, the most difficult part of programming was actually the first step, installing the configured environment, and doubting life if the environment was not well matched. At that time, there was no one around me to help me, no one to guide, and the information on the Internet was uneven, and I didn't know which one to believe, and often a small bug would be stuck all day. ”
Faced with such conditions, Zihao simply chose to do his own tutorials, and found that he was quite suitable for this field in the process of practice. So he decided to make it a career, and made all the self-learning content into tutorials, from blockchain, Raspberry Pi, unmanned vehicles, 3D printing, to machine learning, data mining and other deep learning at the beginning.
"Later, I learned that this is the Feynman method advocated by the great physicist Feynman: teaching is the best learning. Use the output to force the input, so that when you learn, you know that I will give this thing to others in the future, you can't fool yourself, you must figure out every detail, so that you will not be made known by its dimness. I also highly recommend this method of learning, and I am the biggest beneficiary of this learning method. ”
At present, Zhang Zihao has made small achievements in his own field, not only has a series of intensive reading A papers, Stanford CS231N, CS224W open class Chinese intensive lectures, Datawhale interpretable machine learning open class and other representative works, his account "Tongji Zihao Brother" on station B also has more than 200,000 followers.
3. When choosing a major, employment or love is preferred?
Hobbies are undoubtedly the key to Zihao's success, but in the process of talking with many candidates and parents, DoNews found that the vast majority of candidates and parents regard "whether it is good to find a job" is more important.
In this regard, Li Yongpei reminded that when choosing a major, you must think about whether your interests are here. "How many people stay in their own industry after completing this major? Some of the people who really stay in this industry are the ones who have always had a great interest in this field and have encountered valuable opportunities in the course of their studies. ”
He suggested that if you really want to engage in the artificial intelligence industry and become a talent in the industry in the future, you must at least meet the following conditions.
First of all, I have a strong interest in computer science, "because I can't stay the course without interest". Secondly, it is necessary to have a professional foundation, such as a foundation in mathematics and physics, a foundation in statistics, etc., without which it will be difficult to go far. In addition, artificial intelligence is a problem-solving profession, so it is necessary to have an open mind and the ability to solve problems. "To fill in the volunteer, you must first consider your own strengths and potentials and understand whether you have ambitions here." Li Yongpei said.
Yue Changjun, a professor at the School of Education of Peking University, said frankly: "The popular majors now may not be popular in a few years, and they are not popular majors, in fact, the market also needs them, but the demand is relatively small." And some majors, seemingly unpopular, but the country needs. Yue Changjun said that he has been doing a survey on the employment of college graduates all year round and found that if students are interested in majors and willing to learn, they will not only perform well in their studies, but also have a greater chance of graduating and going on to higher education, and will be more likely to find a job, and their income satisfaction will be higher.
Ideally, it would be best for candidates to combine their strengths, interests, majors, and market needs. Zihao's point of view is that the field of artificial intelligence is inherently multi-dimensional competition, and there are embedded AI applications in vertical segments of all walks of life.
"Maybe I'm a Chinese medicine student, but I can use artificial intelligence. These two circles did not intersect originally, but with the help of the fusion of the two dimensions, an AI TCM can be created. People who do AI don't understand Chinese medicine, and old professors of Chinese medicine don't understand artificial intelligence, then you will find that you can be like a fish in water in this circle. ”
The 2024 Global Workplace Trends Report: Transforming AI in Work uncovered a key trend: the definition of talent is changing—in addition to innovative technology talent such as AI, executives are now most likely to favor "non-technical talent with AI skills." Seventy-two percent of executives surveyed said soft skills are more important than AI skills.
What are Soft Skills? In layman's terms, it's all about the strengths of human emotions: your ability to collaborate, your ability to communicate, your passion for your industry, or your ability to think creatively, critically, and be a lifelong learner throughout your career.
In the past, when I stayed up late reciting historical events, AI only took a few seconds to sort out the key points of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization; In the past, the formulas that could only be solved by brushing questions day and night are effortless for AI to do. Rote memorization and fully test-taking learning are no longer applicable to the current era. Whether you are a student or a professional, it is more important to cultivate your analytical thinking, innovative thinking, self-motivation and lifelong learning ability than how to choose a major or a job.
After all, no one can guarantee that popular majors will continue to be popular, and that they will not "run away" across industries like Zhang Zihao.