By Sevanna Emma Shaverdian
Last semester, I watched a classmate stare at her blank Google Doc before she finally whispered, “Can’t I just ask ChatGPT to write an outline for my final paper?” I looked at her with a blank expression and a smile, recognizing she didn’t want to cheat; she was simply defeated. I got exactly how she felt, attempting to navigate the academic pressure of being perfect in a world that suddenly expected us to keep up with technology we barely comprehend.
Students on college campuses all around the country are experiencing the same thing. We were thrown into a world that has been extensively transformed by artificial intelligence, and we were told to “figure it out”. With zero instructions, we received hundreds of emails, reminders, and professors’ warnings not to use AI. However, curiosity got the best of us. Our institutions never really taught us how to use AI responsibly; they just created their own “monitored” versions.
When generative AI first emerged and gained popularity in 2023, it felt almost unreal. There was a “better” Google that would instantly give you answers, write essays, generate notes and summarize readings. But it compromised the fine print of every course syllabus: “cite your sources, produce your own work, don’t cheat, and follow academic honesty guidelines.”
With the launch of AI, we were not confused; we realized this was the moment when the ground beneath education would drastically shift.
Educators built the foundation of instruction on predictability. We were conditioned to learn, memorize and prove our understanding. Then, in less than 6 months, that foundation cracked. Every day, students like me were entering college thinking we would be guided through hardships, but instead, we experienced mental turbulence. Generative AI platforms disrupted our understanding of learning, and the rules we once knew didn’t seem to matter.
