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Recent studies have reported that students use AI in English classes the most.
Professors on campus said they are worried about students who rely heavily on artificial intelligence, or AI, during their time at AACC.
AI is software that was created to think and learn like humans. AACC professors told Campus Current it has useful aspects for students and professors who need a reprieve from repetitive tasks. However, some students have used AI to complete entire assignments.
“Instead of embarrassing themselves in front of the professors, or showing that they don’t know something, it’s cool to show the professors that they are the best and they know everything, [so] they use AI,” medical lab technician Reham Okily from the Medical Laboratory Science Program, said. “It’s easier for them, and it saves a lot of time. But they will graduate and they don’t know anything. They may kill someone.”
Okily helps train medical laboratory students to perform scientific testing on samples from patients. In their future jobs, those graduates will report the results to doctors.
“If you are using it wisely, it’s really useful,” Okily said. “If it’s just because you want to graduate without even understanding anything, it hurts a lot.”
Some English professors, like Wayne Kobylinski, also said they are concerned that students are missing out on valuable learning opportunities in the classroom.
“In my courses, I tell my students that plugging a prompt for a writing assignment into generative AI is like signing up for a weight-lifting class and then coming with a robot that lifts all the weights,” Kobylinski said.
Erin Gable, director of the Legal Studies Institute, said she sees the same thing with students in her department.
“Somebody that produces an object makes a painting or a cup, they get paid for that product,” Gable said. “For attorneys and legals, our commodity, what we get paid for, is our brain. It’s how well we know the law, how well we know the legal concepts.”
In late 2024, a Statista survey revealed approximately 75 percent of public relations professionals who use AI at work mentioned that their younger or newer colleagues are not learning the profession’s principles because they rely too heavily on such tools.
Okily said the problem affects students studying multiple fields.
“If I’m giving you an essay to write, you can use [AI] to get more ideas,” Okily said. “But find it yourself. Don’t ask the AI to write it for you and then ask it to rephrase it, because it’s the same thing. You didn’t do it yourself.”
AI has come a long way in the last couple of years. In January the Business of Apps revealed in a report that ChatGPT has approximately 250 million weekly users. The site can be used to summarize texts, give feedback on grammar, generate a prompt, write a full paper or even just play a game.
Kobylinski has found in his classes that students use AI when writing discussion assignments the most.
“Like the point of the writing class is to go through the process, is to get reps, to get experience with the kinds of things that you need to do to be a writer, particularly a college writer,” Kobylinski said.