ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Three local colleges and universities added new artificial intelligence majors in the last year as schools adapt to the changing AI landscape.
News10NBC’s Emily Putnam reached out to five colleges and universities in the Rochester area to ask how they are responding to growing demand for AI education. Nazareth University, St. John Fisher University, and Rochester Institute of Technology all said they had recently added AI programs, or will soon.
Jeffrey Allan is the director of the Institute for Responsible Technology at Nazareth University, one of the schools that recently expanded its AI offerings.
“Everything we teach them today should be implementable in the workplace tomorrow,” Allan said.
Nazareth University recently added a master’s degree in business analytics and AI in addition to three existing bachelor’s degrees involving AI. The new program has been well-received by students.
“The students have been very excited about it. We’ve seen a lot of rave reviews about the program so far,” Allan said.
Emily Putnam: “What do you see for the future of higher education in AI?”
Jeff Allan: ”I certainly think there’s a good chance that we’ll continue to specialize and refine the program offerings, and as we discover more how artificial intelligence fits into certain niches, that we will develop programs that fit a particular flavor of artificial intelligence.”
Watch the full interview with Allan:
RIT announced a new AI bachelor’s degree starting this coming fall. This past semester, Saint John Fisher also added an AI minor that has gotten a lot of interest.
Allan emphasized the importance of taking AI seriously in higher education.
“It’s really not in our best interest to brush off AI as something like it’s a bubble, it’s a fad because the reality is for all of that talk, there’s a lot of serious work going on globally right now within enterprises and that work is to automate as much as they can through artificial intelligence so we need to be aware of what’s happening out there and learn where we fit within that picture,” Allan said.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 36% increase in jobs in data science and analytics over the next decade.