How To Use AI Ethically As A College Student
AI is becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. It is embedded in many apps, social platforms and online tools – and it’s not going away anytime soon. However, while schools/colleges prohibit the use of AI, they provide almost no clear definition of things that count as the prohibited use of AI and those that are permissible; it’s up to the student to figure out how to use AI while maintaining academic integrity.
AI is beneficial for academic purposes and other aspects of our lives as college students. In this blog post, I’ll give ten ways to use AI college students ethically.
Note: This blog post is not to teach things like how to “humanize” your AI-written essay, how to bypass AI checkers, or how to use AI to cheat on assignments or tests.
Happy reading.
In this blog post, AI tools refer to chatbots like Chatgpt unless stated otherwise.
1. Explain courses, concepts or topics.
The transition from high school to university can be overwhelming, especially with the continuous introduction of many new, advanced concepts. Understanding these concepts while avoiding cramming can be challenging. AI tools can be very useful in breaking down these concepts and explaining them to make us understand them better. I love to use AI to get explanations of ideas because it is easily accessible, and there is no fear of judgment; I can ask it to explain the same concept countless times without feeling judged. It can explain it to me in the simplest way without making me feel less about myself.
One important tip is to create a new chat for each course. This allows the AI to focus solely on that subject without being influenced by unrelated questions or conversations. This improves organization and enhances the depth and relevance of the AI’s answer because these tools often generate responses based on the context of previous interactions within a chat.
2. Brainstorm Project Ideas and Outlines
When it comes to writing essays, completing assignments, projects, or presentations, taking the first step or getting started is usually the hardest because we’re left wondering, “Where should I start?”. Most of the time, taking the first step is hard due to that feeling. However, getting to know more about the assignment, getting a simple outline or tuning our rough ideas to gain more clarity makes taking that first step easier. I love using AI for these tasks to break through the “Where do I start?” bubble.
3. Perform Micro Tasks
Some tasks in a course or life take time out of our limited time. Things like crafting email responses, watching YouTube videos that play no role in learning more about a course than “just because a professor wants us to watch it and discuss it in the class,” formatting documents, etc. AI tools are perfect for completing such micro tasks so that we have more time devoted to things that matter.
Note: If the YouTube video or a video contributes to the course’s learning, I’m not entirely comfortable using AI to summarize those videos because it might miss out on some key details. But if you use AI for summaries and it works well for you, that’s great
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4. Plan Study Sessions and Schedules
One of the things that makes AI perfect for creating a study session or schedule is the ability to create personalized ones. It can create a personalized study schedule by giving it deadlines for course components, available time, the time you like to study best, and other relevant information.
You should try it out!
5. Create flashcards
Flashcards are helpful for active recall, one of the proven effective study techniques for memory retention. AI makes creating flashcards quick and efficient. There are some tools dedicated to this, like Anki or Quizlet. However, you could do it yourself with Chatgpt by inputting your topics or questions (you can ask it to generate more questions based on your topics or course slides/notes to make them more relevant to your course outline).
6. Get Recommendations for Self-Care and Wellness
AI can suggest self-care routines like gym workout plans, stress-relief techniques, and lifestyle tips based on your preferences and goals to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance during college.
7. Create Recipes
AI can generate personalized recipes based on the available ingredients in your kitchen/pantry and dietary preferences, which helps save money and reduce waste. It also generates the step-by-step process to make the recipe and can be tailored to match your cooking ability (basic, intermediate, or advanced).
8. Recommend Resources
AI can recommend a wide range of resources to make things more accessible. You can get recommendations (free or paid) for online courses, learning resources, books, scholarships, wellness, health, and more.
All you need to do is ask it.
Note
1. only input (personal) information you are comfortable sharing online (or anywhere) when chatting with AI bots
2. Depending on how sensitive or crucial the information you get from AI is, always verify the answers from a different source (preferably not an AI chatbot).
3. Take into account “overreliance on AI.” Always try to do what you are capable of, and don’t delegate every task to AI. Doing some tasks yourself helps to stimulate your brain and enhances your critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Doing this also enables you to stay engaged in the learning process.
4. AI should be used to complement your efforts, not a replacement.
Are there any other ways you use AI ethically? Please share them in the comments.
See you in the next blog post.
