5-Minute Read

Since my first post about GenAI and its quick adaptation by the educational space; We have reached another huge milestone for GenAI and its role with education. In 2025 OpenAI had partnered with the California State University system to provide over 460,000 students with access to the latest most powerful GenAI available for free. (https://telecomtalk.info/california-state-university-ai-system-us-openai/989230/).

It is clear that GenAI is here to stay and grow with future generations of students and its faculty as years will pass. As a current student of SDSU, I have seen the birth of GenAI and its ever-growing impact on education since my journey began in 2018. Is there any more steps GenAI can take with higher education. How should any college student and its faculty look at this moving forward.

As someone who did not have access to this tech until midway through college, I have noticed a lot of college culture change as newer generations entered college after myself. Most of my observations have been more concerning than excited to see the future with this tech; However I am optimistic to see it grow as there truly is opportunity for those who use it correctly.

Using GenAI “Correctly” is more of a broad statement than what can be described. GenAI has been around for long enough for incoming college freshmen to have had used it in grade school. Some interactions with younger college students have been a mixed bag. My own interactions is small, but evident that some students have used GenAI with a “lazy” or “do it for me” mindset.

My own personal sample size is not representing all students, but only brings myself concern. I have had many group projects, assignments, and classwork in general where I have heard many things of that scope. On the contrary I have also had some but few conversations with other fellow students where they had used GenAI as a study tool, not a completion tool.

Many of those students using GenAI in a study buddy format, had much deeper conversation, and ideas with how to utilize GenAI. As we advance in this information and automated future. I can only hope grade schools are preparing students and teaching them to correctly use GenAI. As we now have a leading edge in upper level education. The push for AI in SDSU and CSU in general is another stepping stone for our future.

Is this a calculated chess move from the CSU? or a simple business deal from OpenAI. We may never know as outsiders, but time will tell how the future graduates of SDSU and other CSU’s benefit from this decision. Only the careful guidance and adaptation of AI in upper division classrooms will guide these students to be more ethical with GenAI.

Some students I have spoken with were concerned about this decision, as many have the mindset that CSU’s want to collect data on its students. Some are scared to use it as they have the mindset they will be seen as “cheating”. I think this is a interesting idea, as why someone would think that, academic honesty is everything, but why do many of my fellow classmates and friends think this?

I think the stigma of early GenAI still resonates with a lot of us, as GenAI in the beginning was seen as a cheating tool and not a educational one. This does not discern that some may still use it in a unethical way in education. With my current CSU, most of my professors have given instruction or guidance on how to use GenAI in their course.

As professors have gone to this approach and now all CSU students having the latest and greatest GenAI, what now? There are a lot of variables to be evaluated as time goes on. I do not think we have plateaued in this GenAI integration, and wont for quite some time. It has been quite the journey experiencing this first hand as a student.

I have used GenAI personally as a robot tutor, mostly pushing all my data I find, want to find, and what I want to take from it. GenAI has allowed myself to dig through vast amounts of data and keep my scope exactly where I want it. I personally cherish GenAI and its use in my education. I think it is important to understand it and utilize it to further expand knowledge and use of ease of access data.

There are still concerns about its ethical uses in education, and much more as we continue to expand it. However as I mentioned, I do not think we have gotten to the peak of GenAI and wont for quite some time. I am very excited to see the future of GenAI and beyond education as I close my chapter in College to step into my career.

My question to my reader, how do you use GenAI? How do you or others you know use it?