#087 - To Students Navigating AI, Pressure, and Career Uncertainty

Fifteen years out from university, sharing some thoughts on what I would have done differently.

It’s been fifteen years since I left university. Long enough to feel the generational gap opening up, long enough to stop understanding what’s ‘cool,’ and long enough to have some perspective on what actually mattered during the university years of undergraduate and graduate work.

If I could go back and talk to my 2010 self (the version of me who was systematically checking boxes to get through the next milestone), what would I say? More importantly, what would I say to the current crop of civil and structural engineering students navigating a fundamentally different landscape than the one I graduated into?

The question matters because the stakes have changed. AI tools have compressed the pathway from “I don’t know” to “here’s a plausible answer” down to seconds. The competition is global. The spectrum of skill and ability is broader than ever. And the temptation to outsource your thinking has never been more accessible or more dangerous.

This is not a critique of “kids these days.” It’s an acknowledgment that you’re operating in a different game than I did, and some of the rules have changed. But the fundamentals (the actual weight-bearing elements of an engineering career) remain constant.

What I Got Wrong

The Checkbox Mindset

When I was in university, I viewed education as a series of hoops to jump through. Get through exams, secure an internship or work placement. Land a job offer. Repeat. The entire exercise was instrumental (a means to an end), and I failed to appreciate education in its purest sense: as a structured opportunity to build intellectual capacity.

I’m not alone in this. It’s a common mindset, driven by economic pressure, external expectations, and the very real need to establish a career. But it has a cost. Those four to six years pass in what feels like an eternity at the time but is actually a remarkably small fraction of a 40- to 50-year career. And when you’re purely optimizing for grades and job prospects, you miss the opportunity to do something you’ll never have time for again: go deep on theory.

A Rare Opportunity

You will never have another structured opportunity to dig into the mathematical underpinnings of mechanics, dynamics, linear algebra, matrix transformations, and systems theory. Not because you’ll need to hand-derive equations in your career (you won’t), but because the conditions required to study this material at depth are unique to university.

Once you’re working, you’ll be time-poor, context-switching constantly, and operating under project deadlines. You’ll have neither the mental bandwidth nor the institutional support to wrestle with first-principles theory. You can always learn a new software package or pick up a coding language on the job. But building the mental models that come from engaging with difficult mathematics? That requires significant dedicated time and focus.

It’s uncomfortable. It feels like you’re not suited to it. Progress is slow. But the capacity you build (the ability to deconstruct complex systems, to reason from first principles, to see patterns across domains) is so durable. It’s the kind of intellectual infrastructure that doesn’t depreciate.

The Broadening Spectrum of The Next Generation

I’ve observed something over the past decade of working: the distribution of abilities is broadening. The students and junior engineers who are sharp, disciplined, and intellectually curious are faster and more effective than any previous generation. Access to information, computational tools, and global collaboration has amplified their leverage.

But the inverse is also true. The spectrum extends in both directions. The ability to appear competent without building competence has never been easier. And this brings me to the most significant risk I see for your generation.

The Fraud Analogy

Imagine you’ve entered a strength competition. You tell everyone you’re lifting weights every day. To maintain the illusion, you add padding under your clothes each week, representing the muscle you’re supposedly building. Your excuses for not training are good. People believe you. The deception works.

Until someone hands you a barbell.

Or asks you to help lift a couch.

And you can’t do it. Because you’re a fraud.

This is the exact risk with AI tools in your academic and early professional life. If you’re clever and astute, you can use these tools to generate plausible answers, complete assignments, and navigate coursework without doing the intellectual heavy lifting. In the short term, it works. It solves your immediate problems. It might even get you better grades.

But engineering is not a performance. It’s a profession built on the ability to solve novel problems under constraint. At some point (often when the stakes are highest), you’ll be asked to do something that requires genuine understanding, not retrieval or synthesis of existing patterns. You’ll need to lift the couch. And if you’ve been faking it, you’ll have nothing.

The Correct Use of AI (And the Tightrope)

I’m not suggesting you avoid AI tools. That would be dogmatic and impractical. These tools are incredibly effective. The key is to use them as assistants to your thinking, not as replacements for it.

There’s a trade-off, AI can accelerate your workflow, help you explore solution spaces, and handle tedious formatting or boilerplate code. But it cannot build your capacity to think critically. It cannot give you the experience of working through a difficult proof. It cannot teach you to recognize when a result doesn’t make physical sense.

The discipline required to use AI as a tool rather than a crutch is significant. It’s a tightrope. And I understand the appeal of leaning too heavily on it, especially when your immediate objective is to pass a course or complete an assignment. But you’re not optimizing for the short term. You’re building a 40-year career. The question is: are you building genuine capability, or just maintaining an illusion?

My Two Cents

Here’s what I’d prioritize if I were starting university today:

1. Dig Into the Fundamentals (But Be Pragmatic)

Make time (even if it’s just a couple of hours a week or every few weeks) to go deeper on the theory that interests you. Dynamics. Systems thinking. Linear algebra. Finite element methods. Not because it’s required for your GPA, but because you’ll never have this chance again. Approach it as building intellectual infrastructure, not as a chore.

That said, I’m not naive. Your primary objective is still to graduate to the best of your ability and secure a career path. I get it. Balance is required. I could have foregone the many bottles of Buckfast I drank and likely made better decisions, maybe you can learn from my missteps.

2. Practice Critical Thinking (And Communication)

Critical thinking is the foundation of the engineering profession. It’s also nebulous and under-discussed. What does it actually mean?

It means: Can you decompose a problem into its fundamental elements? Can you identify assumptions and constraints? Can you reason about trade-offs without retreating to dogma or memorized solutions?

This skill is built through practice and through thinking, not through lectures. And it’s directly tied to communication. You’re only as effective as your ability to articulate your thinking, both verbally and in writing. If you can’t explain your reasoning clearly, your ideas die in your head.

3. Don’t Outsource Your Brain

Use AI. But use it as a tool, not a crutch. The discomfort of not knowing, the frustration of a problem that doesn’t yield quickly, that’s where the growth happens. If you skip this, you’re avoiding the work that builds capability. And eventually, someone will ask you to solve something real.

4. Embrace the Long Game

Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. The fundamentals (the mental models, the first-principles reasoning, the capacity to learn difficult material) are durable. They don’t depreciate. Software packages change. Methodologies evolve. But the ability to think rigorously? That’s a baseline requirement. And it’s something you’ll refine over your entire career.

A Final Note

If someone had given me this advice in 2008, I would have dismissed it. “Whatever, dude. Times have changed. You don’t know what it’s like now.”

And maybe that’s fair. Maybe this perspective is outdated. I don’t know what it’s like to be a student in 2025. But I do know what it’s like to be fifteen years into a career and to see which skills have compounded over time and which ones haven’t. The fundamentals compound. The shortcuts don’t.

Take it for what it’s worth. And if you’re wrestling with this stuff (if you’re feeling directionless, overwhelmed, or uncertain), reach out. I wish there were more resources like this when I was coming up. Let’s change that.

A shout out to all of the Gen Z heads, hang in there. 👊

See you in the next one.

James 🌊