AI is rapidly reshaping both higher education and the job market, leading many families and prospective students to rethink the college experience.
As a college president and current parent of a college student, I am getting more questions on how AI impacts the college experience. AI will surely reshape the world college students graduate into. At the same time, there is tremendous uncertainty about what that means.
Stated bluntly, we are facing a tectonic shift. This shift will inform how families select colleges, how students should experience teaching and learning, and how colleges should prepare students to launch into careers.
First and foremost, it’s important to recognize that there are certain aspects of a college education that remain crucial to both career and life success. AI does not change these elements — it makes them more critical.
These elements of a college education remain crucial
1. Engaging academically
To get something out of college, you have to show up and embrace the academic work. Without this most students may have fun, but they get little in return for the time and money invested.
2. Developing a wide circle of diverse friends
You have to surround yourself with peers who challenge and bring out the best in each other. It is also critical to develop friendships with people who experience the world differently from you. The relationships students form, or don’t form, shape their personal growth.
3. Finding a mentor on campus
Whether it’s a professor or a staff member, make a connection on campus with an adult who guides, pushes, and catalyzes you. This continues to be one of the single best predictors of how much a student ultimately gets out of the college experience.
4. Being involved outside the classroom
This could include a role with the student newspaper, an athletic team, campus theatre, or with a campus organization that helps develop important leadership and life habits. These factors matter because they are the pathways for students to develop the durable liberal arts skills that they can use throughout their careers, including the capacity to be critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, adaptive learners, and effective communicators.
They also help students develop important executive functioning and 2 other skills, such as emotional intelligence and agility, cognitive flexibility, task initiation and organization, and resiliency and grit.
These are the things AI can’t do. At its core, these attributes give students the ability to see the world through a lens of intellectual curiosity that often defines career and personal success.
But AI experience and agility also matter
AI has become the fifth factor. Employers now expect students to graduate with some amount of AI fluency. If a student shows up for a job interview or an internship and they say they’ve never used AI, they are likely to get passed over. They must be able to point to class projects or coursework where they’ve had hands-on experience with AI.
Using AI is only one piece of the puzzle, though. Employers want to know that students can use AI effectively and thoughtfully — especially a solid grounding in ethical reasoning that will allow them to make good choices for themselves and their employers about how and when to use AI and when to not use AI.
We need to make sure students are given a road map to help them take advantage of AI
What does all this mean? First, students should select colleges where you have access to courses using AI across a diverse set of academic and intellectual disciplines.
Second, students starting college need to understand that the stakes are higher. You need to take advantage of the opportunity if you want to thrive in an increasingly competitive world.
This means thinking about every aspect of your college experience as pieces of a puzzle. The question is how to take the right mix of courses, develop the right kinds of relationships, and be involved in campus organizations in ways that ensure you develop the five sets of attributes listed above.
In the emerging AI era, going to college matters, and taking advantage of the opportunities really matters. The range of skills, values, habits and experiences needed has grown. Most college campuses have what most students require; what we need to do is make sure students are given a road map to help them take advantage of it.
More Great Reading:
