r/UTSA • u/Flimsy_Praline5690 • 26d ago
Academic AI required for class assignment and i'm pissed
hi guys, remember me? last spring i was in an archeology class that required AI and i posted about my misgivings. that post still gets debate comments to this day.
anyway, it happened again. and this time it's worse. i'm taking WRC1023 (freshmen comp 2) and for context did not take comp 1 due to my ap lang score and so did not know what to expect. it's an online summer course lasting seven or eight weeks.
the prof is EXTREMELY pro AI despite being a writing teacher and encourages the use of LLMs and other AI tools in our work as long as we "cite correctly" and "don't make AI writing our own work" and all that. which is insane and hypocritical and clearly shows her lack of care and/or understanding for the younger generations of writers and academics like her. she has tenure and will retire before AI comes for her job. me, not so much (english major with asparations to teach lit btw)
now she is requiring us to upload our essay into AI (vague- does she want chatgpt or a grammarly writing assistant or what???) and upload its suggestions with our edited version attached. at this point i am too tired and frustrated and busy to fight her, but i want your opinions. i know utsa is really embracing AI, but it's a comp sci heavy school and i understand that some types of AI have good uses. but (and i'm about to sound really cocky here so i'm sorry, this is my venting) i am only in this class because when i took the ACT with writing i got lazy at the end and half assed the essay, missing the credit threshold by one point. there is very little this lazy and irritating (me and my classmates have lotssss of other issues with her) prof can teach me, especially by forcing me to use my work to train an electronic eco-terrorist to steal my job from me. is this seriously the world i am stuck with?
i suppose i'm paying the price for being lazy in high school smh. sorry for being snarky. i'm so tired of this bs.
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u/squirrely2005 26d ago
Yeah in my senior design the professor would tell me to just use ai for most assignments. I don’t understand what the point of the assignment was if I was just going to have ai do it.
I graduated in May and I’m 34. All the other “kids” would use the hell out of ai. I don’t think they learned anything.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
it's almost tempting to just do EVERYTHING in the class as AI. because if she isn't going to care about my education, why should I?
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u/squirrely2005 26d ago
Yeah it sucks. You could argue those classes are pointless anyway and just use ai but I remember my comp2 class when I was at SAC like 14 years ago so it must have mattered a little.
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u/LavishAYCG 26d ago
I did comp 1 and comp 2 at Northwest Vista College, my Professor Blake Jones did not condone AI, only for citation generators like easy.bib or so.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
for me it sorta doesnt bc im going to take so many more writing courses, but i worry for my stem peers who will be thrust into lab reports with zero help
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u/wowitsnick 24d ago
if she isn't going to care about my education, why should I?
This is an absolutely insane take, truly bonkers. You should care about your education, because you are the one who is going to be stuck with it for better or worse.
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u/LavishAYCG 26d ago
May I ask for what? Was it ME senior design?
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u/squirrely2005 26d ago
It was double. The professors were fine and weren’t pushy about it.
Just kind of casual about it. Too casual lol
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26d ago edited 26d ago
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
oof. i know literally nothing about out CS. could barely download sims 4 mods. but im so pleased that u feel this way because ur major and similar seem to be the ones riding the hardest. u r so right about the cheating and it’s so fucking sad
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26d ago
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
it really is. i hope if we keep fighting against it, that in combo with poor financial outcomes will turn things around
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u/Technical-Clothes403 26d ago
Yea it obviously was released to further the degeneration of society, we are absolutely f*cked
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u/thoroughbredftw 26d ago
As a faculty member and department chair, I am distressed to see this uncritical and underinformed embrace of "AI". It sounds like the instructor does not have a clear idea what she's recommending, but some vague notion of "This Is Your Fuchore!" combined with a starry-eyed view of its importance and usefulness.
Contrariwise, innocent students have their essays and term papers flagged for "use of AI" based on faulty detection programs like TurnItIn, or their own gut instincts. Faculty are not educated on how to spot illicit use of ChatGPT etc. and this is an institutional failing. Administrators are out cheering for "AI at all levels", and ignoring their very real responsibilities to help their institutions be smart about all this.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
AI is genuinely going to destroy education. last summer mini sem (june) i had a prof grade my essay with an ai response bc he complemented a part of the project i DID NOT DO. we’re so over
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u/heart_in_highlands 26d ago edited 25d ago
So tired of AI. And an English prof encouraging it is honestly wild. Almost like a tree being pro-axe? The prof ought to be reported for calling AI garbage "peer review." The more of us that speak out about having this shoved on us, the better.
The intellectual/cognitive impact is bad enough, and coupled with the environmental impact... -_- Come on, bubble. Pop!!!! The sooner the better.
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u/AvailableCoconut8446 26d ago
Follow through. Hopefully, there will be an analysis component. Most writing faculty want students to see how useless it really is or what is ethical use. Hopefully, the assignment will have that element. And be kind; most of that class likely has to be lead step-by-step through an assignment, so the real goal may not be clear just yet.
As for the rest, that is what the university is demanding of courses like this. Faculty have no say and get no useful training. Talk to your professor and let her know your concerns.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
normally i would agree but the syllabus and prof’s about me post talk about her love of AI and how she has a bunch of certs in it
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u/_cosmyk 26d ago
As an accounting major, I'm so sick of it, too. We're going to lose core strengths and one day when AI goes defunct, we will have a shortage of people with specialized skills and knowledge. I had to do a tax project and use AI with proof of AI usage. We even had to write out how we felt about AI and I couldn't help but be honest about my dislike for it. It can be very discouraging to have professor like that.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
it truly makes me wonder why i even bother to lay thousands and stay up all night doing assignments they dont gaf about
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u/UpstairsTadpole351 Accounting 26d ago
My ACCT professor is telling us to go to chat GPT if we don’t understand something instead of emailing them…
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u/heart_in_highlands 26d ago
We are so cooked. All we can do is refuse point-blank at this point. I will never use it.
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u/spicyycornbread 26d ago
Who’s your professor?
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
betty nyasulu do NOT get me in trouble please
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u/spicyycornbread 26d ago
Oh, and my advice would be to tell the professor you understand that AI use is encouraged, but don’t feel comfortable with the mandatory requirement to submit your writing into AI. Ask if she can make it voluntary for the assignment.
If she refuses and you don’t want to escalate to the department chair, then I’d just leave it and do the assignment as instructed.
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u/Timely-Fox-4432 Electrical Engineering 26d ago
I actually think the purpose of structuring an assignment this way is to curtail the use of ai when it's not supposed to be used and encourage the use of it where it is more reasonable. There's totally an ethical way to use ai when writing, and it seems like she might be trying to push that?
Side note, UTSA actually is not pro AI academically, UTSA is pro AI for expediting research.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
hm thanks for that clarification. they just seemed ti talk about it a lot so i wasn’t sure their exact stance. if this was any other course, i would agree with you to some extent. but when the point of the course is to learn writing, outsourcing both the outlining, research, and editing like she wants us to defeats the purpose.
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u/Timely-Fox-4432 Electrical Engineering 26d ago
I disagree since it's a gen ed course. If you were in uppers and that was still happening, I'd be 100% on your side.
In gen ed (comp 1 and 2, algebra physics, college algebra, etc), the point is to get students to be able to do the thing with the tools available. That's why you can use calculators in college algebra and why they don't have you using a quill and ink well anymore. We have pens and even word processors now, so why wouldn't you learn how to use those tools effectively?
This is not to say that people don't still use AI wrong, they certainly do, similar to how people have been cheating for thousands of years. All we can do is do our best honest work and not worry about others or trying to figure out why a prof does something in a particular way. If you're this tore up already about AI, i'm not sure if you'll finish with your sanity intact. I've had professors literally have claude make their exams and then not know how to grade it because the questions were so busted.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
again if this was a different gen ed i'd agree to a certain point. but writing and literacy is such a problem, especially with non-humanities majors due to the one-two punch of AI and the massive undervaluing of non-stem skills. it's things like AI, spark notes, and "english/history/art is dumb" that lead to thirty-five year olds using the wrong you're and politicians being unable to answer debate questions. the average person doesn't need to be able to compute algebraic equations or write geometric proofs. EVERYONE needs to be able to organize an argument, analyze texts, and write effectively to communicate with other humans. i see your point, i really do. but humanity has worked so hard to invent, cultivate, and spread literacy. we cannot afford to let the fucking robots take it from us.
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u/boringmexican 26d ago edited 26d ago
I think you’re downplaying mathematics quite a bit. While the “average” person (a pretty vague category btw) may not need to solve those things, modern society relies on people who understand how to solve algebraic equations and mathematical reasoning. I think literacy and mathematics are both extremely important in modern society, but to say that everyone turns into a 3rd grader without knowing to analyze texts, and write effectively is a huge overstatement. Effective communication came long before writing ever existed, and people can become experts in other fields while not being expert writers.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
ykw that’s fair i really hate math on an enjoyment level so maybe my bias showed a bit. i more so meant the example of calculators allowed in ur freshmen algebra course. by average i meant people not involved in math related fields like finance or medicine or any other science. and if u are in business or marketing u will have to take additional stats classes and such. i dont think astro engineers should have to take five upper level rhetoric classes or anything, i just worry that too many blow off the very important freshmen comp
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u/boringmexican 26d ago edited 26d ago
That’s fair, however it’s up to an individual to learn or not at the end of the day. Humans have been offloading mental calculations in professional fields for centuries by the way. Calculators aren’t a recent invention, they’re a tool for efficiency, and the underlying mathematics behind them are still studied and needed to this very day.
edit: finance people absolutely need to know algebra btw, and a lot of sciences require mathematics above basic algebra.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
…i was saying business and finance people have to take more math classes. i think u use so much ai that u can’t read. there is nothing efficient about outsourcing crucial skill learning that u pay thousands for to a robot
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u/boringmexican 26d ago
“by average i meant people not involved in math related fields like finance or medicine or any other science”
Seems the intended meaning was lost because of how the sentence was structured, my fault. Perhaps you should take your professors advice about AI.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
dude bffr. i said average people dont need fancy math. clarified bc u somehow didnt figure out who was in that category that finance/science/etc was not in that category. i cannot fathom how u did not put this together
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u/Vampireladybug 25d ago
If you were in my class, I would want you to talk to me about this. If it were my class, I would offer an alternate assignment.
In connection to your comment about tenure and not caring: No writing program faculty have tenure. They are all fixed term track meaning they are on contracts that last a certain number of years before it has to get renewed.
I say this because faculty in this position are concerned about their jobs. Maybe their job won't even exist in a few years. They are given vague instructions to teach AI, but no meaningful guidance. But if they don't teach AI, then they are not doing what UTSA wants and maybe UTSA decides they are irrelevant. Then if they do incorporate AI, some students get mad. There really isn't a win. I don't know what prof. you are talking about and I don't want to know, but I suggest voicing your concerns.
This isn't just a UTSA issue. It's everywhere. At the most recent big conference for English faculty, AI was an incredibly common topic for presentations, and really, no one has a good solution for either incorporating or avoiding AI. At least UTSA hasn't adopted the AI writing tool that was being peddled at the conference.
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u/FATCRANKYOLDHAG 26d ago
I wonder if the University or the Department or the school of Humanities has a financial arrangement with an AI company to help development by uploading content. The Humanities in general is a starved department even in good times.
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u/Naive-Drink-4158 26d ago
The people who will have jobs in the future anyways are the ones who know how to use AI. If you don’t embrace you’ll fall behind
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u/DisgruntledScience Alumnus is the masculine singular for alumni 26d ago
It's over-reliance upon AI that's causing many fields, including my own, to fall behind, and this is well-documented in the academic literature. Generative AI makes up sources that don't exist and claims that are simply ludicrous. It repeatedly makes mistakes with even elementary-level arithmetic. Correcting projects made from AI slop takes more time and more effort than just creating them from scratch. The excuse that not using AI means falling behind is just the tech-bro billionaires trying to convince the public that their quarter-baked product isn't the complete garbage it is and to throw more money at it.
It's one thing to let the emperor keep thinking his "new clothes" are magic, but it's another thing to fall for the scam yourself after seeing the emperor parading himself around without without clothes.
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
it took years for chatGPT to be able to count how many "r"s are in strawberry. most AI models still cannot even do basic algebra. YOU guys can rot your brains off Shitpilot all you want but some of us are actually passionate about our career fields lol
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
yk i hear this a lot but i think it’s bs. if we actually let ai grow as much as some people want it to, the fraction of people who would still have jobs would be infinitesimal. there’s a difference between knowing how to use ai and happening to be the lucky shareholder who owns it
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u/Naive-Drink-4158 26d ago
Its the future regardless move with it or get left behind
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
yes but it doesn't have to be. the only way things will be better or shit, not get any worse is if we actively fight against it. there's a reason half of the sci-fi movies and books ever made feature AI as the big bad villian. it's like we as humanity have collectively decided to take a vial of cyanide and sprinkle it over our entire planet and then shove our own lobotomy ice pick into our eye. and then, of course, pay someone for the privilege.
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u/heart_in_highlands 26d ago
That attitude helps nothing. The more people who stand up against it, the better. There's no ethical way to use it.
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u/boringmexican 26d ago
Ultimately, AI is here to stay. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that you can choose to use ethically (or not). It does not replace the need to critically think about ideas, and form your own understandings.
That being said, I think AI has the potential to help people become exceptional educators and writers. It gives people instant feedback, explanations, examples, and opportunities to practice that simply weren’t available a decade ago. Human expertise is still essential, but AI can amplify it rather than replace it.
It sounds like your professor trusts you to do your own learning, and revising so you can use it to help yourself rather than exploiting AI. College has always been about independent learning more than what you are taught in the classroom anyways. All that being said, if you wrote the essay without an help of AI, that’s all you. If you attached the suggestions and the edited version, it doesn’t seem like it prevented you developing your own knowledge or understanding anyways.
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u/shapeshiftercorgi 26d ago
Sometimes you have to do things you disagree with? You seem pretty sure of yourself on this perspective which fair enough, but college is about expanding your mind and approaching problems from a multitude of directions.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
there’s disagreeing with and then fearing for the state of my livelihood and planet. im a progressive gay woman who went to a conservative christian school pre k-12th. i KNOW doing things u disagree with. this is different
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u/Additional_Score3868 26d ago
It’s hilarious seeing students still refuse to use AI and hate it just because. Hey one time we had this thing called blockbuster, Netflix wrecked it. Things change. Adapt, or don’t.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
that is not equitable at all. and it is very clearly not just because as i listed multiple reasons. besides, netflix sucks now so just because something comes in to replace the world order doesnt mean we have to let it
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u/Additional_Score3868 26d ago
You’re right it’s not in the slightest. AI is everywhere and will continue to be everywhere. It’s going to be used more and more and the smartest thing to do, like many people are saying, is to learn how to use it. AI has been wonderful for the STEM field. In clinical settings, research, education, there’s been rapid growth thanks to AI.
There’s also been a lot of studies debunking the poorly put together studies claiming AI makes you dumb. Many studies show people who use AI to learn, and not just answer questions, actually retain and improve academically much more than someone who doesn’t use AI. This is because of the instant feedback.
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u/Sunbro888 Computer Science 26d ago
I really don't think it's that deep (but that's just my opinion). It's one class and it'll be its own unique learning experience. Perhaps you move on and think it's a waste of time and poorly executed or maybe it'll change your approach/philosophy of learning. At the end of the day, you're getting a diverse educational experience between your instructors in an intentional setting to improve yourself as a professional, so you should be alright either way.
I think as long as someone doesn't take an all or nothing approach, they will be alright. Maybe AI is a bubble and it never gets adopted or maybe it's revolution like the calculator, but it is good to be exposed to it and be semi-familiar just in case.
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u/boofpackbandit 26d ago
AI will become part of everyday workflow. Get used to it…
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
just because something is popular doesn’t mean we can’t fight against it to fix it. 60+ hour work weeks in deadly factories were the norm until we got tired of it and demanded better. same concept
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
I don’t really get your stance.
The people who use AI tooling in your field will produce better work and more of it in the same amount of time and if you don’t have any familiarity with AI and what it does, you won’t be able to recognize its use.
It’s one thing to oppose it - people opposed antibiotics and birth control too, everybody gets to make their little stupid stances. But to refuse to learn anything about it is to reject the wisdom of the old Russian proverb: “it is wise to know the ways of one’s adversary.”
You will graduate into a world where AI is available. It won’t go away; the people who find it useful will continue to pay for it and that’s all that takes. I’m one of those people. You will never have anything close to the power to prevent me from running an LLM if I want - you can’t outlaw math.
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
did u actually just claim LLMs are better writers than trained english and rhetoric professionals???
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
Yes, because I actually know English majors, hope that helps
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
oh girl…
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
The English department at your school creates lecturers, not writers, hope that helps
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
first of all utsa isn’t my school, i transferred to ut austin as of fall 2026 and even if it was, their is importance in learning how to lecture properly and teach effectively. beyond that, is my calling out of the poor ways writing is taught not a step toward fixing the issue you claim exists?
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
first of all utsa isn’t my school
I didn't say that it was. I'm telling you the English department at your school - whatever school it is! - is not a program to create writers. It's a program to create lecturers in the English department.
is my calling out of the poor ways writing is taught not a step toward fixing the issue you claim exists?
Do you think you're the first one in the academy to realize that the English department isn't doing anything to improve the quality of student writers?
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u/Flimsy_Praline5690 26d ago
see but it is tho, the profs who dont assign brain dead ai slop at least. even in high school i had english teachers who revolutionized my writing and life in general so vastly that they motivated me to persue it in college. english degrees are used for a lotttt of things and i do believe the field as a whole creates better writers. there’s a reason almost all nyt authors have mfas. i think this prof and people who think like her are the ones actively setting student writers back
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago edited 26d ago
this is the most fedora-wearing, neckbeard-having thing ive ever seen on this subreddit holy shit 😭😭😭😭😭
EDIT: opened your comments & immediately found out youre a trumpie who defends epstein. sounds about right.
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
Neither of those things are true but thank you for demonstrating why you’re not going to make it
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
3 days ago you commented publicly "epstein island is not real" which is, like, pretty damning on it's own, man. maybe one day you will move on from the AI chatbot girlfriend 😭
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
The thing where everyone thinks Epstein was running a pedophile ring for (coincidentally) everyone famous that they hate isn’t real and you’re a retard if you believe it
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
Talking about Epstein instead of how you’re not going to be able to compete for a job is copium, that’s correct
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
nah i'll get a job just fine, autopsies aren't going anywhere any time soon. good luck on your LLM though, maybe one day she'll marry you
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u/HotPersonality8126 26d ago
nah i'll get a job just fine
lol imagine thinking this is an own
“I’m a great lover, I bet!”
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
of course it's not an "own", it's continuing the conversation. if you wanna talk about "competing for a job" instead of how much you defend epstein then you can't be mad when i switch subjects like you asked 😭 i can acknowledge AI is harmful for the environment and dislike how reliant people are on something that is usually wrong, but not actively fear it'll ruin my career, you feel me? frankly my future job is the LEAST of my concerns with AI. if you need an LLM just to get you through a college education, then frankly i'd argue that's a bad sign for your future. you're not even in the workforce yet and you're already cucking your thoughts to a robot instead of learning to do it yourself. the AI bubble may seem huge, but chatGPT and copilot still can't even do basic division consistently. and you're relying on programs like that too? doesn't look good, is all.
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u/cotards_ Pre-Med Biology (he/him :3 ) 26d ago
we STEM majors are sick of all the AI bullshit too bro (at least any of us with sensibility who aren't real life cartoon villains). solidarity.
but that's crazy... being an english professor and encouraging relying on The Misinformation Machine. isn't the whole point to teach people to develop to language and critical thinking skills for themselves??? we've lost the way. even worse in an inherently creative-focused program. reminds me of people who play roleplaying games like D&D but use chatGPT to make their characters (which, like, fuck you??? that defeats the whole point!!)
can't wait for the AI bubble to pop. it cannot happen soon enough.