Despite what students may think, McMaster’s restrictive AI guidelines will best prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow
McMaster’s AI advisors have not had an easy job dealing with the rise of AI. When Chat-GPT was first released for public use, the university had to quickly throw together provisional guidelines which were mostly prohibitive of the use of AI. Out of nowhere, a huge threat to honest academic work became available to all students giving the academic institutions little time to consider how to respond.
McMaster’s response has taken time, but the beginning of this year has marked the introduction of guidelines no longer considered provisional.
These guidelines are unpopular with many and the consulting process created rifts between the McMaster Students Union and the university administration. MSU president Jovan Popovic suggested that students need to be prepared to work with AI in a future workforce in which the use of AI is prevalent. Meanwhile, the university was greatly concerned about the significant risks that AI poses to university pedagogy by undermining student engagement with their coursework and learning
The final guidelines have fallen firmly on the side of mitigating educational risks, without a single mention of the AI skills that might be required for the future of work. While this may disappoint student union activists who fought for more permissive AI use, I think the guidelines’ are best for students entering the uncertain AI future.
The guidelines’ ultimate goal is to maintain the integrity of the university learning process. This process is one based on learning the methods relevant to any given field of study, rather than simple content-based learning. These processes are under threat by generative AI’s capabilities to produce text indistinguishable from that written by a human, to analyze data and to interpret primary sources.
AI’s abilities to do this work convincingly represents a fundamental threat to intellectual labour. The MSU’s position, informed by this belief, is that students need to familiarize themselves with using generative AI in order to prepare themselves for a workplace dominated by AI use. But this fails to account for experts' varied views on what a future with AI might look like.
Without denying its potential to change the landscape of work, MIT Sloan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's business school, has discussed what the direct impacts on workers might be. It suggests that subject-matter experts and experienced employees will be increasingly required to work alongside AI, judging the quality of its output and the appropriateness of its use.
McKinsey, a globally recognized management consultancy, argues that humans will still have to check the work of AI to ensure it is correct and accurate. So, maintaining and fostering our abilities to write, validate sources and ensure the quality of our work remains essential. Considering the errors that AI can and does make, AI is best used for well-defined, job and company specific tasks such as searching through proprietary data. It is vital that we maintain and foster our creative and critical thinking abilities and not blindly trust AI with such important tasks.
McMaster’s new guidelines’ continued focus on teaching core skills is best suited to creating knowledgeable experts, ready to excel at tasks they are assigned and who understand where AI might help their work and the importance of verifying the accuracy of AI's outputs. Additionally the new guidelines’ promotion of the long, repetitive process of learning will create students prepared for a workforce defined by lifelong learning.
I believe McMaster’s current guidelines, old-school as they are, are in fact the best model for creating students ready to work alongside AI, regardless of how it may develop. Anyone can write a prompt for Chat-GPT, only well educated experts will be truly prepared for the work leftover.
ElevateYourSkills allows students to gain professional learning alongside their degrees, helping students increase their chance for jobs
C/O ElevateYourSkills
The ElevateYourSkills option at McMaster Continuing Education enables Mac students to gain professional learning alongside their degrees. ElevateYourSkills an accessible and flexible way for students to gain career skills in a wide variety of areas.
Lorraine Carter, director of McMaster Continuing Education, explained that, with the competitiveness of the job market, this option can equip students with the tools that they need to succeed professionally. Carter also added that the option was particularly built with students in mind.
“Now there is great attention by industry, employers [and] government on not only academically prepared students but also students who have a practical skillset when they graduate. This idea of elevating or enhancing the skills that you can utilize shortly after graduation is what ElevateYourSkills is all about,” said Carter.
Carter emphasized that traditional university education, which often includes more theory-based learning and less practical knowledge, is also incredibly valuable for academic enrichment and skill development. She further emphasized how academic skills are even more valuable when complemented with practical skills.
“If we think about, for instance, the social sciences and the humanities, they cultivate many important skills, but they can be hard to articulate. Whereas, if you are an English student or history student and you can complement your studies with courses and programs that are focused on career development, then I think you are in a better and easier place to leap forward and secure work that is ideally meaningful for you,” said Carter.
Michael Foster, a communications student at McMaster, completed a digital marketing certificate through McMaster Continuing Education. As a fourth-year student applying for jobs now, Foster is glad he did the program.
One of the greatest benefits, Foster said, was being able to put the theoretical knowledge he learned from his communications classes into practice.
“[T]here were some aspects that I got taught through communications that complemented the different technical skills [in digital marketing] such as search engine optimization or digital marketing strategy, market analysis or Google ad campaigns and how to properly write different captions, closed captioning and blogs for different companies . . . I thought it was really, really good to understand that, while also understanding my theoretical side, so I can put everything into my best practice,” said Foster.
The number of courses that a student takes for their certificate depends on their area of professional study. For Foster, he took five courses which he finished in about two years, all of which he took online.
The flexibility to study online and use the courses in his certificate as electives towards his communications degree helped Foster complete the certification alongside his busy schedule.
Now, as he is about to graduate and enter the workforce, Foster said that he is getting a lot of job interviews and believes the extra certificate has helped prepare him for the job market.
“When I first went into my certificate program, I was looking at the industry and how future jobs in my industry are kind of difficult to come by at the time. [I] saw what the requirements were for those jobs and I promised myself that after my undergrad I don’t want to try and get any big education again for another two years. I just want to go into the workforce, start making good money and certainly get a name for myself in the work experience. So, as I was looking for what these jobs needed, I realized my degree is kind of missing some of these things,” explained Foster.
Given that completing an extra certificate is not something everyone does, Foster emphasized that doing so was a way to stand out in the workforce and be ahead of other competitors.
“It helps when [employers] are scanning through your resume and see your technical and theoretical skills that come from your undergraduate degree,” said Foster.
Foster encourages students to consider the ElevateYourSkills approach especially if their degree does not directly lead them to the workforce.
“If you’re a person who is kind of looking for a route that’s not necessarily given to you directly through [your] degree program, look to expand, look to create your own path because there are options out there and ElevateYourSkills is one of them. It helped me out a lot and it gave me a little insight into the real world. That helped me get to where I am today,” said Foster.
Interested in learning more about ElevateYourSkills and how you can get a career certificate alongside your degree?
Visit: mcmastercce.ca/elevateyourskills.
