Colleges Revamp Courses to Help Prepare Students for the AI Workplace
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees, but I don't really need it. The inflation is killing me. But who cares? Big retailers are making record profits. That's why we support the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. See? Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll. This bill would cut the vital resources they need. While increasing megastore profits. They deserve it, don't they? Tell Congress, stop the Durbin Marshall money grab for corporate megastores. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
How are colleges changing programs to teach AI workplace skills?
Here's your Money Briefing for Thursday, August 8th. I'm J.R. Weyland for The Wall Street Journal. As the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace increases, more colleges are revamping their programs to prepare students for incorporating generative AI in their careers.
This is coming at a time as more Americans are questioning the value of a college degree. Colleges are really eager to prove their relevance as a path to well-paying jobs, and they see an AI degree or AI coursework as a way to help their students get there.
And the classes are not just limited to students who want to apply for tech jobs. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Mila Serjati after the break.
Access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees, but I don't really need it. The inflation is killing me. But who cares? Big retailers are making record profits. That's why we support the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. See? Banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll. This bill would cut the vital resources they need.
What types of AI courses and minors are universities offering?
While increasing megastore profits. They deserve it, don't they? Tell Congress, stop the Durbin Marshall money grab for corporate megastores. Paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
More colleges are overhauling their degree programs and adding artificial intelligence courses. Wall Street Journal reporter Mila Serjati joins me.
How do AI classes teach applied skills vs. technical coding?
Mila, what types of courses fall under the AI curriculum?
Generally, these classes and these new AI minors are about how to use generative AI tools, how to apply AI in different fields of study, and how to think about the ethical dilemmas that might arise when you are using AI in your daily life. I talked to one psychology student at Emory who took a class called Data Mining the Mind, and they learned how to use AI to detect problems. patterns in a patient's speech to diagnose brain injuries and disorders. So classes are really application-based. Other schools really require students to get a deeper glimpse into the technology and the coding. So Emory requires the students who are pursuing its AI minor to take an intro to a computer science course. At USC, it's the same idea.
They have to take classes like programming in Python, basic tech and concepts behind artificial intelligence tools like neural networks as well.
Why the rush to launch AI classes now?
employers increasingly want their hires to have AI skills, and colleges are hearing about this. So as of December, there's a statistic from the Work Trend Index from Microsoft and LinkedIn that 66% of business leaders said they wouldn't hire someone without AI skills.
Why are colleges rushing to launch AI curricula now?
They would not hire them.
Yeah. So colleges are really looking at the rise in generative AI in the workplace and seeing that they have to prepare their students. A lot of it, as you can imagine, came after OpenAI released ChatGBT in 2022. So some students saw how pervasive this technology was in their lives, and they really started to worry about being left behind. I talked to one student who was really anti-AI. When it came out in 2022, he watched classmates using it and was really worried about academic integrity and how much creativity students could have in their lives after AI. But then he did a marketing internship the following summer, and he was really surprised when his boss kept asking him to use ChatGBT to draft crowdfunding pitches.
And he got really scared about being left behind with this technology that's moving so fast.
So he came around.
Yeah. And he came back to Emory in the fall, and that was the time that they had just launched their AI minor.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:34
2
How are colleges changing programs to teach AI workplace skills?
0:34–1:45
3
What types of AI courses and minors are universities offering?
1:45–2:10
4
How do AI classes teach applied skills vs. technical coding?
2:10–3:21
5
Why are colleges rushing to launch AI curricula now?
3:21–4:39
6
Who are the AI courses designed for — tech students or everyone?
4:39–5:56
7
What workplace abilities (prompting, oversight, ethics) do students learn?
5:56–7:28
8
Can fast-changing AI tools outpace what colleges teach and how will success be measured?
7:28–8:17
Speakers
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