Universities race to prepare students for the AI ​​workplace

The rise of generative AI in the workplace and student demands for more hireable talent are driving schools to revamp courses and add specialized degrees at speeds rarely seen in higher education. Schools are even going so far as to emphasize that all college students should be knowledgeable about the technology, teaching them how to use AI in a given field, as well as its flaws and unethical applications.

Schools are eager to prove their relevance as a route to high-paying jobs as more Americans question the value of a college degree. Students believe AI skills could make the difference between landing a job or not.

Jake Golden, a junior at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business in Atlanta, avoided ChatGPT after OpenAI launched it in 2022. He saw his classmates using it to write essays and worried about its potential to sap creativity.

However, during a marketing internship the following summer, his boss asked him to use ChatGPT to write crowdfunding proposals and mimic previous campaigns.

“If I don’t learn AI, it will take over everything around me and I won’t have any idea what’s going on,” he recalls thinking.

When Golden returned to campus in the fall of 2023, Emory launched its artificial intelligence major, which covers applications in areas such as psychology, economics and English. He immediately enrolled in introductory courses and added the program to his business degree.

Demand from employers

At Handshake, a job-search platform for college students, the share of job descriptions mentioning ChatGPT and other generative AI tools has tripled in the past year. While about a quarter of those positions are tech-related, 16% are in marketing and 12% are in arts and media.

“There’s a huge demand for people who have these skills,” said David Reed, associate provost for strategic initiatives at the University of Florida.

The state school ramped up its AI program starting in 2020, fueled in part by a $70 million donation from alumnus Chris Malachowsky, who co-founded AI-focused chip giant Nvidia. It now offers about 200 AI classes that reach nearly 12,000 students each semester. It has a three-course certificate program that prioritizes real-world use of AI.

“I knew that with these different AI tools I would stand out a little bit more to employers,” said Catalina Vaca, a third-year business administration student at UF.

It’s too early to tell whether this has helped students land jobs they might not otherwise have. “We’ve been working at full speed,” Reed said. “We haven’t had time to evaluate yet.”

‘It’s not a choice’

Students now expect professors to teach them how to incorporate generative AI into their careers. Cornell University, for example, is designing a specialization in AI and society, which professors envision will prepare students to fill the AI ​​talent gap in both the public and private sectors.

Last year, the University of Southern California launched its AI for Business program, a joint degree between the business and engineering schools. In its first year, the program received 713 applications from first-year students for fewer than 50 spots. This year, more than 1,000 students applied.

“Students and parents see that this is going to change the labor market in unprecedented ways,” said Kimon Drakopoulos, associate professor of data and operations sciences and the program’s inaugural director. “So adapting to this and being able to meet the needs is more of an existential question. It’s not a choice.”

Educators say their main concern is keeping up with the rapid growth of technology. In most schools, it can take years for committees to approve new academic programs.

“Take a two-week vacation and you could fall behind,” said Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell’s School of Computing and Information Sciences.

Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey will require all students, regardless of major, to take three Frontiers of Technology courses per semester. They can choose from five tracks: artificial intelligence and machine learning, data science and analytics, biotechnology, sustainability, and quantum technology.

“Do universities have a responsibility to teach these skills that are trendy today but may go out of fashion in ten years?” said President Nariman Farvardin. “They don’t.” Instead, universities have a “responsibility to teach students to learn for life,” he said.

The new Microsoft Office

AI literacy is the modern equivalent of typing in the 1970s and 1980s, a universal requirement for all students entering all job fields, said Joseph Fuller, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School who researches the future of work. Job seekers must demonstrate that they can interact with a tool like ChatGPT and get the most accurate and comprehensive results, he said. And students must also be able to identify when AI is wrong.

Valerie Capers Workman, Handshake’s director of talent engagement, said generative AI is the new Microsoft Office. “The skill set will be ubiquitous in 10 years, but in the next two to five years it will be a major asset in landing a job,” she said.

He said some employers have begun administering rapid engineering assessments, which test how well generative AI models can be instructed to complete a task, during the hiring process.

When Preston Doll, a USC senior studying business and specializing in AI, applied for investment banking internships last year, he made sure his resume highlighted his AI coursework.

Doll isn’t sure if his experience with AI helped him land his summer analyst position, but it’s paying off: His company uses CreditAI, a generative AI tool that can answer queries about companies’ credit analyses.

“Wherever my career takes me, I’ll use AI to enhance my work, my speed, my accuracy,” Doll said. “Anything that helps me get better at my job.”

Write to Milla Surjadi at [email protected]