UMass Amherst graduates reflect on college experience, brace for uncertain future

AMHERST — As they received their diplomas at McGuirk Alumni Stadium on Friday, many of the 7,000 undergrads at the University of Massachusetts Amherst said it is the best of the times and the worst of times.

While students basked in the moment, expressing their pride and ability to make it through college, many said they are equally concerned about the job market and the threats of artificial intelligence as they venture onto their next chapter.

During the ceremony, Provost Abd-El-Khalick gave graduates an invitation — to make a trek to the top of the world’s third tallest library, the 280-ft W.E.B. Du Bois Library, and take a view of the landscape and fullness of the campus and college community.

“It is a remarkable perspective,” he said. “Fom high in the air, you see the full breadth of intellectual inquiry of UMass.”

As they took selfies and celebrated with their peers, students and now graduates shared their perspectives and reflected on how UMass has formed them while trying to make sense of the future.

Brady Arsenault is going into an industry many might assume is flourishing given new technological advances: computer science. Nonetheless, he underscored the struggles of the job market he and his peers have been facing. Despite submitting “a hundred applications,” he and other aspiring computer scientists expect to get a single job interview at best.

“With the AI and stuff that’s coming out, the whole landscape of the job market is changing — like they’re laying off a bunch of people and downsizing because they can increase productivity with AI,” he said. “It’s just way harder to get a job.”

Massachusetts native Joshua Crosby is taking his talents down south and working as a commercial general contractor. The construction management major worked on the student firefighter force, working alongside the Amherst Fire Department and wore a helmet in lieu of a graduation cap.

Part of his student experience was spending 36 hours at Olympia Place in Amherst, which burned down in November and displaced more than 230 people.

“Put the emotions aside, it was a lot of physical work, and fighting to stay awake and keep hustling,” he said about being on scene for the fire.

He has zero fear of AI taking his future job. “AI is definitely not replacing me,” he said.

“Excited, nervous, happy, sad and proud with an exclamation point,” was how best friends Sophie Letendre and Julie Coughlin were feeling ahead of graduation. They said they’ve enjoyed the lead up to their big day.

“We had a student athlete breakfast and then cleaned the house and took a nap,” said Letendre about her day leading up to receiving her diploma.

The two engineering students have no jobs lined up, but they’re not nervous about AI either.

“I don’t think it’s gonna ruin everything for jobs — not while we’re here,” said Coughlin, adding that AI will prove to be more of a tool than a replacement for their jobs.

Their greatest memories of college were being a part of the dance team.

Matt Wong of Quincy said diving into clubs and extracurriculars was the best decision he ever made.

“If I was a freshman and you told me I’d be doing this club, this club, that club I never thought I would be doing it,” Wong said.

On the topic of AI, Wong, who has a job lined up in Boston as a civil engineer, said there is a demand in his field that he does not believe AI will be able to fill.

“As far as civil engineering goes, I think it’s pretty secure,” Wong said. “I don’t think AI is gonna completely wipe us out. It’s gonna make a lot of things easier, but it is definitely not going to wipe the job market as far as civil engineering goes.”

Palomi Kotadia of India said her UMass experience was nothing less than great and that Greek life was a prime memory of her four years. But the psychology major and business minor said the job market isn’t being quite as kind to her.

“AI creates a lot of opportunities, but destroys other ones, but in general I feel like the job market is pretty bad,” she said. “I know a lot of people who got laid off. It’s hard to find a job, especially as an international student, and hard to find someone who would sponsor your visa, so it’s just like a struggle in general.”

But at the end of the day she said, AI will be incapable of replacing human-oriented jobs, like psychology.

“Screw AI” said theater major Meena Cunniffe of Amherst, who received a scholarship to attend college from Insomnia Cookies. She never thought she would go to college, and expressed how grateful she is for her time at UMass.

She doesn’t have a job lined up other than working for Insomnia and a gig in the fall working as a playwright at UMass, and said that AI progress needs to be halted.

“Especially in the areas of entertainment, it’s so up in the air — there have been so many strikes and whatnot and trying to regulate AI — but it’s running rampant,” she said.

Her friend and fellow theater major Julio Varella feels the same way. He is a fan of the Avengers universe, but he feels differently now that the next film, Avengers Doomsday, is reportedly being made using AI.

“I grew up on Marvel, and now I don’t want to watch it, because they are taking jobs and artistry,” Varella said. “It’s scary but I don’t control any of it, I partly have to be against it, and I think it is a duality I’ll hold onto for the next five to ten years.”

Cunniffe added that, “Everyone loves the convenience of technology and AI. But I’m also an illustrator, and it’s everything I love to do — I love to write, I love to draw and performing — but no one’s going outside, no one’s talking to each other, everything is AI and chatbots, Instagram, Snapchat and social media.”

She said her hope is that people be less afraid to pursue real-life, in-person relationships and experiences.

Will AI have an impact on government bureaucracy? Not for political science major Chloe Durer of St. Louise Missouri. She said as of now government workers are not able to use AI because it is an open information processor and not confidential. She doesn’t see AI breaking into the bureaucratic machine anytime soon.

“The government is known for being behind in technology,” she said.

Jonathan Forbes, another political science major, is navigating a different struggle, which is trying to find jobs in spite of government cuts. Luckily for him he secured a job with AmeriCorps following graduation.

Despite all the challenges, the day’s keynote speaker, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Kimberly Budd, shared a message of resilience.

She said when she was a first year student in college she received a “big fat D” on her first college English paper. But that only motivated her to more aggressively pursue writing, and the professor who gave her that D ended up recommending her for a tutoring position.

Quoting Maya Angelou, she said, “you may encounter defeats, but you must not be defeated.”