How are college students using AI tools like ChatGPT?

“I find it most helpful for summarizing readings and just making really menial and time-consuming tasks a lot easier,” Miglani said. A premium ChatGPT subscriber, he said he regularly checks his math problems with the chatbot, though it often can’t handle the complex equations and concepts used in some of his classes.

Miglani said the preliminary models of ChatGPT were “pretty rudimentary,” struggling to produce quality written answers and useful for mainly short-answer assignments and creating outlines for his essays. Now, ChatGPT and other AI tools, including Microsoft Edge and Gemini, are Miglani’s near-constant companions for homework tasks.

For the first few semesters after ChatGPT’s debut, Miglani said students used it fairly freely without much concern about getting caught, as AI detection software didn’t yet exist. Now that commonly used submission programs like Turnitin allow professors to scan assignments for evidence of AI use, Miglani said he’s been more conscientious about writing essays that won’t be flagged. 

“I have not gotten caught using AI yet,” he said. “In fact, now, as I take higher level courses, professors understand that people are going to use AI, and so I have started asking them, ‘Do you approve of AI use in and in what capacity?’” 

Some of Miglani’s professors have allowed AI use for research and basic summarization, but many draw the line at using chatbots to generate citations or write essays.

By Christina Chkarboul

“I don’t really remember using it (except) for a homework problem.” Joseph said she didn’t want to use it to complete an assignment, rather it was for background information. 

“I was kind of confused, and I didn’t have access to go up and ask the professor. I’m trying to not use AI as much in college because college is about new experiences and learning from your professor.” 

She is aware of others who use AI in ways to aid with studying or a quick answer. “Some of my friends in college have used it. From what I’ve learned, they use it as a study tool.”

By Abbie Phillips

“I don’t really need it that much. I just searched (online for) a question for my class. Google has (generative) AI (responses),” Lim said. Just as quickly as he can find an answer with AI technology, he said, can find a result with Google.

He believes that his roommates most “definitely” use ChatGPT and AI tools within their educational journey. “Most of my roommates try to depend on it. It’s so easy to access, so it’s hard to stay away,” Lim said.

However, personally, he says he has not had to rely on AI for his educational assignments thus far. 

By Abbie Phillips

“I haven’t used CHAT GPT because (AI) freaks me out just a little bit,” Moeckel said. “I remember one of my brothers ended up using it for high school, but I’ve never used it because I don’t think there are any real benefits to using it. You don’t learn anything just by using it.”

By Ally Valiente

“A lot of times, I use it for writing assignments for any of my (general education classes), or I use it for my (computer science) classes where we’re writing code projects and things like that,” Zhang said. OpenAI’s new o1 model — designed to spend more time thinking and processing before spitting out responses — has become popular among Zhang’s classmates studying computer science, he said.

When he doesn’t know how to start an essay assignment, Zhang often asks ChatGPT to “help me generate ideas, help me write almost like a template or a skeleton structure for my essay for my writing, before I take some of the big ideas and then completely rewrite it myself,” he said. But when he wants an AI program to produce text he can use, Zhang uses Claude, an AI language assistant that he believes generates more natural, human-sounding writing than ChatGPT.

Most of Zhang’s professors have strict policies prohibiting any AI use, but he said he’s “never been called out for it, just because … I take plagiarism pretty seriously. So, whenever I do it, I make sure to actually change it a lot, to make sure that it’s actually my own text, my own ideas.”

By Christina Chkarboul

“Yes and no, with the yes (that) I have used it just to find a different definition (for a word),” Lara said. “For instance, if I’m trying to look up a word and it has multiple definitions, ChatGPT will also give those multiple definitions.” 

Regarding a professor allowing the use of ChatGPT, Lara said, “I mean for research purposes yes; not like plagiarism — I do not condone that — but I feel like for research purposes, yes.”    

By Stephinie Phan

“I haven’t used ChatGPT or another AI because I’m too scared to. They have all those tools to check now, like Turnitin,” Segoviano said.

“It will say what’s plagiarized and what you didn’t give credit to, and all that. Or it will highlight specific phrases. So, I’m too scared to use ChatGPT or AI for it.”

Segoviano added that she doesn’t want to get “in trouble over something that’s an easy assignment to do.”

By Calista Stocker

“Yeah, it was for a history assignment, and I was really confused on my outline,” Licea said. She wanted to get more information about a U.S. History assignment, and “my professor was kind of confusing me that week, (so) I used it for an outline.”

Licea added, “I just got ideas from it, not necessarily cheating completely.” 

Regarding any professors encouraging the use of AI for coursework, Licea said they have not been in favor. “All of them complained about it, kind of said that it’s kinda taking over.” 

She believes professors should incorporate AI tools into assignments, recommending ways to learn from it. “We (wouldn’t) necessarily go and copy right off of it, but — like what I did — it ended up giving me little ideas that I liked. 

Continued Licea, “If they gave (resources) to us like that … then we’d all have that same resource rather than try and find something that we aren’t even learning from.” 

By Stephinie Phan

“I’ve never used it on assignments,” Robledo said. “What I’ve done it on was (job) resumes when you describe in the first paragraph briefly (why) you’re looking for a job. I can never find the words for it so I literally just use it for that.” 

While Robledo has not heard of professors including ChatGPT in assignments, she said, “I don’t agree with the whole ChatGPT thing. I kind of don’t think it’s the best idea for a student to use it just because it doesn’t benefit you at all.” 

By Stephinie Phan

“I’ve used Copilot to help me understand several complex subjects including biology, general chemistry and even English and arts classes,” Aguilera said.

Aguilera regularly uses AI as a supplement when a professor’s explanation of a concept is not quite clear. Although he declined to provide a specific example, Aguilera explained how he might use AI while doing math homework.

“Let’s say I have a complex math question. I could have the AI break it down step-by-step from sources across large databases that I would never have the time to go through myself,” Aguilera said. “Rather than spending hours looking through a textbook, it pulls the most important theories from textbooks on the internet — and maybe even the ones I use in class — in seconds.” 

Aguilera continued, “It structures it in a way that makes it much more easy to understand, allowing me to study more efficiently and understand the material rather than getting lost in words and unnecessary filler.” 

He also uses AI tools to ensure the accuracy of his work prior to submitting answers to a digital homework program that docks points for mistakes. “I don’t use it to answer my questions directly, but I use it as a guide to make sure I’m right when I’m doing my own work,” Aguilera said. 

By Teagan Davidge

“I’ve used it to help me complete an assignment for Media, Technology and Society,” Canale said. “I used it to form a research question that I would do a later assignment on.”

For this course, Canale said, “It was approved by my professor. … She heavily encourages us to use AI to guide our thoughts.”

By Joshua Silla

“In (journalism and media studies) 472, we are encouraged to use AI to formulate research questions, which is super helpful,” Velasco Polanco said. “Besides that, I mostly use it as a study tool. I would then submit my entire notes and the study guide and then I ask the program to make questions based on that information. It’s really, really helpful.”

By Joshua Silla

“I definitely have used ChatGPT numerous times for various assignments. I’ve also used them for different classes to varying degrees of success,” Rangel said. 

“Usually, humanities was the area where I benefited from ChatGPT the most,” Rangel added, “while I got very inconsistent and flat-out wrong work from STEM prompts.” He has found it to be a useful tool to get “an idea of how to solve certain problems.”

He has not had a professor that has expressly allowed ChatGPT be used for assignments, Rangel said, “but at the same time, there wasn’t any who truly enforced that rule or bothered to check since they deemed us ‘too grown up’ to know that we were basically cheating ourselves and not the school.”

By Natalia Montero Acevedo

“I know someone (who used it). And they would use it mostly for (courses involving chemistry) or math,” Salas said.

“It was not approved by the professor,” she added, but the student used AI when stuck on a problem to help solve it. “And then, (the student would be able to) ‘specify how you did that’ or ‘explain this answer.’ It had more of an in-depth use of how they could use different equations”.

By Natalia Montero Acevedo

“I think (my friend) uses ChatGPT for essays and in general on information that they need,” Estevez said, “(when) they wouldn’t necessarily understand the whole concept that the professor was trying to get out of them.”

He added that it was approved for this usage. “ I think (the professor) let them use it for information, but not for, like, plagiarism.”

By Jesus Herrera

“Yes, I don’t know the specific details, but a friend did use ChatGPT for an English assignment,” Torres said.

When asked what faculty thought about students using it, he said, “I do not know for sure, but I would probably think it’s negative because all my teachers have a negative stance towards AI being (acceptable).”

By Jesus Herrera

“I used it for math to understand a concept,” Games said. “As for my friends, I think they used it on English assignments to get sources.”

He continued, “I know my sociology teacher doesn’t like it, but the rest … don’t address it much.”

By Jesus Herrera