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Experience
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2026 Q2
Has the bare minimum for new grads raised exponentially?
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69 replies
Interview Experience
I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, I guess I kinda reached a breaking point. I recently graduated from my masters in December 2025, and I've been struggling to land a entry level job. I'm trying to
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I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, I guess I kinda reached a breaking point. I recently graduated from my masters in December 2025, and I've been struggling to land a entry level job. I'm trying to grow as much as I can but the more I try to learn things, the more I feel like I know nothing at all. I understand that as technology grows, the skills and barier for entry becomes easier for new students, therefore the bar is raised higher, but does anyone else feel like with the use of AI, that bar was raised exponentially? I've been avoiding AI, I'm trying not to be dependent on it. But I know every company wants you to use AI, but at the same time, I keep getting told or shown that you should easily be able to know every area of SDE by using AI. As new grads, can you even afford not to learn everything? I feel like I'm in this jack of all trades, master of none situation. From my time in college, I've done work from python, to java, down to C and assembly, and then touching areas in frontend with html css javascript, and backend and databases with MySql. I've a couple of group projects entirely with MERN. Tbc, using most of these during my days in college, so its obvious the level of expertise I would be in. Since Janurary, Im trying to focus on as much as I can, but I feel like I still know nothing. As of now, I'm doing a refresher on sql with Mysql, I did a couple of web apps to keep up with html css javascript, as well as followed a couple tutorials to understand the foundations of React and Django. I use python exclusively for Leetcode. But I still feel like I know nothing at all. I still blank so many times at the very few technincal assessments I've been getting. I want to learn MERN stack cus I like focusing on one framework that works well together, but I feel like that isn't enough in today's market. Besides all the hiring recruiters I've talked to telling me to use AI, theres also cloud/cybersecurity and devops being thrown around everywhere. I understand that this is really imposter syndrome and I will always be dealing with it, but I want to ask is if this is truly on me or is there a systematic unbalance with what new grads are expected to bring into the job market in these last few years? Or rather am I just that dumb or has the market not adjusted for how much AI changed everything? And I won't lie, I'm not the perfect person, I did use AI to help me a good chunk the last year and 2 in college, thats why I've been avoiding claude, chatgpt, cursor. Ik how bad it can get when you become dependent on it. I'm trying to be better. But not only does it feel like there is too many directions I can go in and not enough help, it also feels like everyone is telling me go in every direction through AI. I feel like I have to do 50 different things, and know 75 other things, but at the same time be a master at 100 things even though I'm a new grad. It feels overwhelming. Apologizes for the doom post, this post ended up being a mini-rant, any advice would be greatly appreciative.
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Stack Queue
Sql
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