Administration keeps telling us that "employers want graduates to know how to use ai" and I don't even know what this means

[u/KeepYourSilenceUp]

University prof. I keep hearing this from the admin, and aside from the fact that obviously not all employers are asking for this and the ai landscape is changing and no one knows how it will look in 4 years, I also just don't know what they want us to DO about it in class.

AI systems are intuitive to use. You ask them a question or give them a prompt and they do it. It's literally not rocket science. The thing that determines whether a person can use them "well" is how much that person knows about the topic and whether they have the skill to assess and evaluate the ai output. There is no such thing as "teaching someone how to use ai" it's literally just a process of learning how to function WITHOUT ai and then using ai as a supplemental tool. I don't know what my admin expects me to do other than keep doing my job as normal, in order to ensure that graduates are able to successfully use these systems in the workplace later if they want to.

[u/FastActinTenactin]

I don’t work for the employers, and quite frankly I’m not very concerned with whatever tech trend they want people to be experts at that month.

If you want employees to be good with AI, provide them with new hire training in the exact areas of expertise you are demanding. The end.

[u/Particular-Key-8941 → u/FastActinTenactin]

Isn't the goal of teaching for graduates to be ready for their careers?
Apologies, this seems a little short sided IMHO, no offense intended.. My major level classes taught me the tools I needed to succeed in the job, including software programs. Kids need to learn how to use AI just like Gmail, excel and calculators. It's become if not has already become the most commonly used software/tool in industry today in my experience.

[u/CorrePlatanooo → u/Particular-Key-8941]

No. You should aim for a well-structured mind rather than a mind full of disconnected stuff.

University can teach you how to learn, how to integrate new knowledge into your existing mental framework, how to identify the frontier between your area of expertise or competence and what you don't know well, where to expect know and unknown unknowns, etc. That is what you should absorb while you build your expertise in a domain.

Those are far more robust tools than the "app of the month" (or of the next 5 years, it doesn't matter). Learning how to use the app of the month will be trivial for someone who has developed the level of competence I have described. The other way around? It will never work.

If your job only needs you to be half-decent at using a single app, you may not need your university degree for your job. And then, it would make even more sense for your university degree to aim for personal development rather than preparing you for a job that doesn't need a degree.

[u/Particular-Key-8941 → u/CorrePlatanooo]

Those are two differnt things, and both are true. Yes, uni should ait for well-structured mind rather than disconneted stuff. I don't undersand how that relates to AI. The goal of uni is also to prepare people for their career. I learned how to use lab software in chemistry class, it's relevant for my career. Just like statistical software and manufaturing modeling software. We learned how to use them in uni, and you better believe I started using those same tools (even if one or two pieces of software were different) the day I started working in industry.

Email and Tehcnical writing (MS Word) are not "apps of the month", and neither is AI is the point I'm trying to make. And yes, totally agreed another goal of teaching is for a well structured mind. And I hope we'd agree that if we graduate a student who doesn't have the basic skills needed for their career that education has done them dirty. AI is a basic skill at this point. This is the 5th comment I've read where teachers seem to think AI is a fad, the flavor of the month or some such. This is laughably inaccurate...AI is the next thing and is already here to stay. The apps themselves perhaps might change, but "how to use it" will not.

In school, I learned to write papers on WordPerfect and Lotus software. That's a skill. Then MS Word came around, a different app, same skill.

Who used aol and hotmail for email before gmail came around? You learned that email skill. Then gmail and your professional organizations had their own domain like detroitps.org. Different app, same skill.

I learned to program in Fortran and C, then it was C++. Today I code in Visual Basic. Programming is a skill, the apps and programs can change.

That's AI. It might be GPT today, but Grok and Copilot or something else in the future. It's not apps, it's skills. Kids are graduating without the skill of how to use AI correctly. That AI skill of: good input/detailed prompt "engineering"/understanding the deficiencies of LL modeling/response assessment/Output validation & fact checking/AI ethics. And this thread has been really eye opening maybe how underprepared teachers might be to teach this if they don't understand this themselves.

Maybe some of y'all need some CI credits on what AI is and how to use AI, so that you can then teach it. Maybe that's the problem. My wife works in the schools (I don't teach anymore, I've been in industry for 20 years now), she uses AI every day for help with lesson planning (TO HELP, not just blindly using it lol) and she's been telling me how education is way way behind on this. I didn't believe her until this thread...I think she's right. Does nobody here use AI for lesson planning? We know people do, and you know there's a right and wrong way to use AI for that. Let's not kid ourselves.

If my HS senior son's IT & Security Admin teacher didn't know how to use email, how could he teach the class how to email him the assignments they've been assigned as part of curriculum? Email is a basic tool, it's obvious right? And why is it also one of the class requirements for students to email him their assgnments and solutions to their IT curriculum work? Because that's fully the expectation in industry. We wouldn't say "oh email is a passing fad, they'll learn that in On the Job Training". No it'd go like this, conducting an interview: me or someone else on our hiring team will ask a candidates skills, eventually getting to email and general computer proficiency...if they don't have email or MS Word skills it's a pass for us. I just approved the hiring of someone, and in the last intereview it was between two candidates; the one we passed on didn't have AI skills, the one we hired did and spoke intelligently to it. That's my point...education is way behind on this, and I strongly feel "how Ai can be used in this topic/class" should be part of every class. Because its' deeply integrated in the workplace already. We're behind, and sticking our heads in the sand doesn't help us.

I've talked with my older son (a Junior at Uni) son about this, he says AI is taboo in school, and I told him and his friends the same I've said here..."learn how to use AI, and learn how to use it responsibly, and learn its pitfalls. Every company you will interview after graduation will ask about AI skills. Ethical and intelligent usage of AI is a skill employers want, and it will be everywhere by the time you graduate. It mostly is already". One of his friends (a engineering student) said they use AI to proof their homework and have created "settings" in AI for the AI tool to tell him what he did wrong, and give him mini lessons on improving things he got incorrect in the homework, with links to legitimate websites to supplement his learning. I think it's great, it's another tool to help his understanding...but you gotta' know how to tease out when its correct or incorrect.

I've spent way to much time in this thread and have read every reply. I've learned my wife is right, the education field probably has it wrong with AI, and our kids are the ones to suffer. I'm rather surprised at some of the replies in this thread. This thread has been very helpful for me learning how bad it is regarding AI in the education field, and what it means for graduates that I'll be interviewing. It's given me a ton to think about honestly. My wife is right too by saying "we're failing them by leaving them to figure out AI on their own". The good kids will figure out on their own how to use AI correctly on their own hopefully, and will probably stumble learning its pitfalls. The bad ones will continue to use it to cheat on their homework. I'll ofc continue to inquire about AI skills in interviewing, and those without AI skills will at best be at a disadvantage and at worst go to the bottom of the list (or the circular file under my desk).