r/AskComputerScience • u/Wonderful_Shake_8484 • 5d ago
Question about AI use within college courses
Hey all, I just had a horrendous discussion with the chair head at my college over the usage of AI within classes. I had went to him to complain about a professor pretty much requiring the usage in order to pass the class (something I don't wish to use, I prefer to learn how to code myself), however he has taken the professor's side, going as far as to say that "no one is coding in the field anymore, they use AI instead."
So I'm curious about other's experiences at their colleges, are your colleges full stop banning the use of AI, or are they allowing it (even encouraging it)?
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u/minneyar 5d ago
"no one is coding in the field anymore, they use AI instead."
I can't speak about colleges, but this is flatly untrue. AI code generation has become very popular, but it's also very controversial and there are a lot of people who do not use it at all.
Even if one does consider AI-generated code to be acceptable, you still need to know how to code in the first place to be able to tell whether what the AI generates is good or not. This is the same reason why calculators aren't allowed in grade school; yes, in the real world, everybody uses calculators to do arithmetic, but if you don't know how to do addition and multiplication yourself, you won't be able to understand how to use a calculator effectively.
IMO, courses that allow (or encourage) students to use AI to generate code rather than learning to write code themselves are doing an extreme disservice and are producing a generation of inept programmers who will never be able to work in a senior-level role because they're not even developing beginner-level skills.
I'll also point out that I see you said you wanted to go into gamedev, and the backlash against using generative AI in gamedev is massive. Most players and developers hate generative AI. You can try to vibe code a game and hide it if you want, but if it comes out that you used GenAI in your game and lied about it, your reputation will be shot. Games are supposed to be intentionally crafted works of art; nobody wants generic slop.
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u/Silamoth 5d ago
I’ll second this and say that plenty of us are still writing code ourselves. Very productively, I might add. There are definitely devs who use LLMs and agents a lot. But the “AI” companies want to sell you a fantasy, and executives want to buy into that fantasy. Yet no matter how hard they try, that fantasy is not real.
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u/Cyo_The_Vile 5d ago
I have been working for 10 months. the AI tool codes for me 95% of the time but my intuition kicks in and has me code those remaining 5%. and I graduated quite recently doing everything pre-AI. I think grinding fundamentals without AI superpowers is better than having claude earn your computer science degree.
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u/Wonderful_Shake_8484 5d ago
I personally wouldn't work for a company that makes me use an AI tool, but yea I want to actually learn the information without using AI for myself.
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u/Cyo_The_Vile 5d ago
Im not forced at all. For clarification. But your choice in your educational journey is absolutely the correct one.
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u/Tai9ch 5d ago
A college computer science program teaches several things. One of those things is programming, and one style of programming that is essential to learn in a CS program is the small scale programming that's feasible for college homework assignments.
If your CS program doesn't teach that skill, and doesn't have several classes that directly exercise writing code with a text editor, with auto-complete off, and exams where you need to write computer programs without internet access, then your CS program is failing you.
That being said, line-by-line programming is a foundational skill that it's useful to abstract away from as you get into more complex topics and examples - like operating systems. And LLM-based programming tools are very useful to help students be able to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Sure, writing one new thread scheduler is a good programming homework assignment. But you can write four in half the time and get more detailed comparisons if you LLM-generate the code. And that's probably more useful, if you actually care about comparing thread schedulers (or whatever).
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u/Wonderful_Shake_8484 5d ago
The specific class the professor comes from is a operating systems class. This specific professor even stated he intends to make the assignments much harder to 'encourage' us to use AI to solve it. This is a disservice to me, as using AI to solve problems will not help me learn, I need actual practice doing it myself to understand it.
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u/Tai9ch 4d ago
You're looking at it wrong.
LLMs are tools. Imagine you were in a carpentry program and the "house construction" class insisted that you use a backhoe instead of a shovel to clear and flatten the building site for the house you were building and to buy furniture instead of building it by hand.
Yes, flattening a building site with hand tools is a neat skill. But probably no professional carpenter needs it. Yes, making hand-built furniture is a useful skill for carpenters. No, you shouldn't be practicing it in house building class.
It's possible to teach an OS class with a lot of manual programming - if there's some way to enforce manual programming for students. It's possible to teach more topics in more detail with less manual programming.
And really, your fear of LLMs today sounds a lot like people's fear of C compilers 40 years ago ("the machine is doing it for me, oh no").
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u/theJacofalltrades 4d ago
i think the bigger issue is whether ai is being used to replace the learning process or actually support it. using it to explain concepts or point out mistakes seems pretty reasonable, but having it write the assignment defeats the point of the course.
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u/Wonderful_Shake_8484 4d ago
This is for an undergrad class and professor wants us to write majority of the code for homework assignments with it.
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u/Fidodo 4d ago
When I was in college a long time ago, they had us execute C code on paper. Obviously we had computers to do that, but by writing out the execution of the code step by step on paper it forced you to think about the low level steps and how it translated to memory instructions. It was a very helpful exercise for understanding how things really worked.
So if you are in a CS program and not learning to program, what is the point?
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u/Lagfoundry 4d ago
It’s not so much about that as it is they trying to prepare you for the future and AI is going to be a big part of our worlds future. So knowing how to use it right is a good thing. Before anyone says it there is big difference between using it for random stuff and using it for to help with engineering
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u/Key_Net820 5d ago
At my university, we have an order. When you're first learning, no you better not use AI. It's just like using a calculator vs doing arithmetic by hand. You will never need to do arithmetic by hand in real life, but you will need to understand how it works, and that's why you have to learn how to do it by hand first. Similarly with wolfram alpha, you will never have to solve systems of equations by hand, but you need to understand how it works, so you're not allowed to use an auto solver to solve your equations until after. Then near the end of the semester when we're doing projects and reports, then ya, at this point, we are allowed to use AI to help us formulate the equations, write the code, and whatever the project consists of.