During my last semester of the Business Administration bachelor program at Rotterdam School of Management, I was enrolled in the core course Digital Business. This course, provided by the current Business Information Management MSc director Dimitrios Tsekouras, was developed to provide students with a better understanding of how firms, consumers and employees are impacted by the evolution of digital technologies, and how understanding their impact can be leveraged to their advantage (Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2022).
Naturally, the best way to understand new digital technologies is to use them yourself. Furthermore, some of the most talked about novel technologies last year were generative AI tools. These two reasons combined are why professor Tsekouras decided to incorporate ChatGPT into the Digital Business course.
For students, the task at hand seemed simple. One component of the final course grade consisted of writing two essays on course related topics. The catch, however, was that both essays had to be written by using ChatGPT. While most of my fellow students were excited to receive two high grades for free, I was sceptical. Up until that course, I had not used ChatGPT or any other generative AI tool for that matter, nor did I have any idea of how they worked. “You are better off learning how to work with this new technology in a structured manner at university, then having to start using it haphazardly later in your career“, the professor said. Perhaps he is right, I thought, and thus I set to work.
For both essays, we were tasked with inputting all the requirements into ChatGPT, and having it write the entire essay for the initial draft. I thought to myself that there was no way ChatGPT could write a coherent essay in one go based on all the different requirements I gave it, but for both assignments the initial drafts came out surprisingly well. After the initial draft, we were tasked with properly reading the text ChatGPT generated, and then giving instructions to the AI tool on how the essay should be improved. This would range from rewriting a sentence or two on a very specific subject, to rewriting entire paragraphs when it did not quite understand what was required, to asking it to implement proper sourcing within the text.
My main takeaways from this experience were that there are definitely benefits to utilizing ChatGPT for school. Such an approach would allow me to think more deeply about the actual content of my university work, and less about writing in proper English and the structure of the text. However, it is really easy to let your guard down and have ChatGPT cook up some real nonsense if you do not properly check its output. Therefore, I would like to recommend my fellow students who do not like using generative AI at all to still give it a shot, as I experienced that there are benefits to using them within school context.
References
Bachelor Business Administration Curriculum. In: 2022 Course Catalogue Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2022. Accessed from: https://eur.osiris-student.nl/#/onderwijscatalogus/extern/indeling/RSM_BAB
This blog post really hit home for me as I recently found myself in the same situation as you. I remember being just as skeptical when I found out about ChatGPT and, like the author, I was really surprised by how well the initial drafts turned out once I started poking around with it. It’s crazy how AI has come this far, and it makes sense to learn how to use it in a structured manner at university, rather than fumbling with it later in our careers. It also has a lot of applications that effectively help us save time on menial tasks so that we can focus on the important aspects of our education.
The author’s point about focusing more on the actual content of the work rather than the writing process really resonates with me. I’ve always struggled with putting my thoughts into words, so the idea of an AI doing the heavy lifting for me is pretty appealing. But, as the author wisely notes, it’s crucial to not let your guard down. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not infallible, and you should definitely review its output carefully to make sure it makes sense. I often simply use the AI so that it can help me find a coherent structure, and then I fill it out fully with my own content.
The recommendation is very valid and I also encourage anyone who has not tried these tools to give them a shot and play around with them. It can be very fun to see what it is capable of, and it is also a very useful tool for automating time-consuming tasks so that you can focus on the aspects of university that matter the most.
Hi Jorian, we were in the same class last last year and therefore I had the same assignment. I was intrigued to read your experience to see if we had the same experience. I did use ChatGPT before the assignment so I guess we differ in that. For the assignment I came to the realisation that I just did not know when I was finished. When I write an essay myself I think about which arguments I want to use, write it and try to make it better when finalizing, done. When I used AI I always felt like there were possible improvements left. When do you hand it in. When do you know that it is finished. Eventually I handed it in and the grade was fine, but to me it did not felt like it was better than if I would have done it on my own. The main plus to me was that I was done way more quick with the help of ChatGPT. So just as you said, it is a a very useful tool for automating time-consuming tasks, but I do think that it is better to use it as an assistant than as a replacement for yourself!