Tag: students

School Me Saturday 6/28/25- Students and AI- Part 1

ChatGPT was set forth unto the world like a biblical plague on November 30, 2022.

I was just finishing my first semester of the PhD program when our statistics professor announced it to the class. They said that AI was going to be a big thing for, well, the world. There was not going to be anything that AI couldn’t touch. These programs had the ability to analyze reams and reams of data in a blink.

Less than 3 years later we know better.

Yes, AI is capable of doing amazing things and has vastly sped up the analysis of critical data.

If you know the correct prompt. Or the proper way to word your request.

When it isn’t hallucinating citations and facts that aren’t there.

The pro-AI people say well, that’s because it wasn’t trained well enough. I say that if you put crap in, you get crap out.

My statistics professor also cautioned using the new programs for schoolwork.

Don’t forget, it was released just in time for finals.

Colleges and universities had to scramble to put in rules and explanations of the rules. Some AI is encouraged at some places for some papers for some classes. Some instructors have embraced it and are teaching students about it. Some instructors have not.

It is very confusing.

For me personally, I have only used an AI engine when it was an assignment. I want to be responsible for all that I write, incorrect or not. After all, I was able to survive all of my primary and secondary education without online search. In 1993, Creighton had just put all of their books into a computerized card catalog. I didn’t write my first paper using facts from the internet until 2015.

Now Google is a verb and AI slop is everywhere. AI slop refers to low quality media, including low quality writing and low quality images. Kind of like AI hallucinating things.

Yes, I am older than Google. Hell, I am older than the internet. What a time to be a student! The rules are made up anyway.

One thing that is a bit comforting is that AI is not subject to copy right. Because a copy right means that it was human made and AI is not human.

School Me Saturday 10/12/24- mentoring the younguns

This afternoon I was at the grocery store. My cashier was a young bubbly sort who waxed rhapsodically over the brown sugar I was buying. I told them I baked cookies weekly for the operating room department that I worked for. Therefore, I need a LOT of brown sugar.

They were equally enthusiastic about the operating room. They thought that must be so cool.

I assured them that it was. And being an operating room nurse was amazing.

Even if, or because of, all the patients are under anesthesia.

They confessed that they were looking at nursing as a career.

You know, after they graduated from high school. In 2 years.

The thing about being a nurse is that we always feel the need to give back, to give advice on nursing as a possible career. Or to offer encouragement when it is needed.

They asked about my schooling, and how long it took to become a nurse.

I said that was a complicated question.

My ADN took about 2 years. Plus six months on prerequisites.

My BSN took about 18 months.

My MSN took about 2 years.

And my PhD, well, I was in the third year of the program.

They looked astonished by this outpouring of information. And a bit intimidated.

Reining it back, I encouraged them to give serious consideration to becoming a nurse. And the best way to start is with an ADN degree. And that not all nurses did all the other schooling.

The ADN is the foot in the door. Whatever they did after that was icing on their cake.

They said they had always wanted to work with kids. I smiled and said that kids need surgery too.

They grinned and told me to have a good rest of my day and that they would think about what I said.

I didn’t want to tell them that my nursing license was old enough to drink.