Campus Technology Insider Podcast June 2024
Rhea Kelly 06:00
That sort of appearance of ChatGPT on the scene, that's quite a change to happen in the middle of developing an AI degree program. Did you have to really pivot with your planning or consider some new, new courses or new, new ideas that would need to be covered?
Antonio Delgado 06:17
So that's a great question. And when, you know, when we were developing this degree that didn't exist before, no one has done this at the undergraduate level from an application of AI perspective, we were developing the foundation that is required for anyone, without any previous knowledge on either programming or computer science or even artificial intelligence or even advanced math, is, what is, AI should be at the hands of everyone. It cannot be an exclusive group. So we were already thinking of what is a foundation that any person, regardless of the background or the previous experience or expertise, can come and learn about artificial intelligence, and it's a foundation that goes beyond what ChatGPT and generative AI is now public and well known. Like, it's beyond that. It's more about the foundation of artificial intelligence, of machine learning, of computer vision, natural language processing, and now generative AI being the most well-known and, or well most-used AI solution, but it's not really, not necessarily the only solution. So we're teaching a foundation, understanding that we have developed a program in it, in this field of artificial intelligence, that is not going to stop changing. So of course, we're going to continue reviewing the program, actually, every six months to a year, we have to revamp the program — we've established foundation, but that the applications is the portion that is changing. And that's where it's not to completely change the program when ChatGPT happened, it's just to continue evolving the program, because we were planning to continue evolving anyways. And next year is going to be an evolution, again, to continue being adaptive to what industry, what companies are looking for in understanding of AI. And at the end, it's about the applications: How do you learn about artificial intelligence to be able to use it on your workplace? So is, again, the program is already set. The program is in full motion, and right now we have over 750 people. I don't want to call them students, because it's really anyone, people in the community that have joined our first year offering these AI classes. And if that was first year, imagine what's going to happen next academic year and the second, you know, in August, we launched our work for the second year in a row. We're going to just grow that potential to really help anyone understand about the usage of AI.
Rhea Kelly 08:50
I love that you mentioned that need to keep up with the pace of change, and maybe revamping the program every six months or a year. What does that look like in practice? Do you have faculty meetings, or, you know, is there like a set schedule of you all sitting down and looking at how technology is changing and what changes need to be made?
Antonio Delgado 09:11
Yes, and this is not necessarily a model just for artificial intelligence. This is what we apply to every technology degree that we have in place. Because it's technology at large that is changing, and every program that we have at Miami Dade College in technology, we created a business industry leadership team to support that program. We have done it in cybersecurity, data analysis, data analysis and cloud computing. Now we're doing it with artificial intelligence. And this group of Business Industry Leadership Team, like these are, BILT, in short, we, they are experts in their own field. They are, in the case of artificial intelligence, they are the hiring managers in AI looking for talent that come with AI skills. And these were the experts, in many different sectors, in industries, companies, well known or less known, and they were the ones helping us first define the degree, a degree that didn't existed. So a degree that came based on the skills that they are looking for, on their future employees and professionals. And really overall, not only for those industry experts to gauge, you know, to give us the feedback at that time, two, three years ago, but also is the recurrent meetings that we have with them and faculty to share how the curriculum is being implemented, but to continue getting the trends that are happening on industry, where they can provide feedback on how the students are learning, but also where the industry is going. So that combination is not just necessarily going with the latest technology, it's actually how the companies are hiring based on the needs for specific technologies. So that, we have minimum three meetings a year with them. And because we academic institutions are definitely layer on semesters, where we have, in our case, fall, spring, and summer, we always tie those meetings back to those semesters. And really that's how we continue connecting with the BILT members, getting their feedback and sharing our experience so far, but definitely having the faculty connected. And this case is a co-leadership role, where it's not just faculty as owners of the curriculum, but faculty learning from these experts to continue upskilling themselves, to be able to offer the students really the best instruction possible with the technology that we're teaching.