Ready to graduate: MSU Denver computer science students weigh in on AI and ‘volatile’ job market

DENVER — Last August, at the beginning of the school year, Denver7 interviewed computer science students at Metropolitan State University of Denver about being in the middle of a major shift because of artificial intelligence.

They discussed how AI was changing their classes, the job hunt and the industry as a whole.

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This week, Denver7 followed up with two of those students, both seniors now ready to graduate.

They said they are seeing AI more often in school and are getting more used to working with it.

“I still think it's a tool, and I still think that there's a lot of hype around it,” senior computer science major Monica Ball said. “I think that it can be useful, but we need to be thoughtful in our application of it."

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“I think when it comes to generating code with large language models… You're losing some of the critical thinking and you're not spotting bugs before they come up,” she added.

“Finding a balance, especially as a student, has been difficult,” fellow senior Angela Fleenor said. “Because I want to, like, exercise my brain on the base materials and really figure out the concepts and, like, have a solid foundation. At the same time, I know if I use AI, I can do an assignment faster. And with time pressure, what it is sometimes, that's the path I choose. And so I think I've been really intentional about thinking through, ‘What do I really need to learn?’”

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The students said this year, they’ve seen instructors change how they’re evaluating their classes, focusing more on the process to get an answer rather than just the answer alone.

“I've noticed some teachers give paper handouts now,” Ball said. “They're trying to make it harder for students to be able to just copy-paste something into an LLM [large language model], which is interesting. I've also noticed that some professors are being more thoughtful in their approach to layering a problem, to kind of force a student to think through it, instead of just skipping to the end.”

“The skills we need aren't to write a line of code,” Fleenor added. “The skills we need are to see what the AI gives us and evaluate the veracity and the quality of the information.”

Both Ball and Fleenor are evaluating their post-graduation plans, saying the job market is “crazy” and “volatile,” with a lot of hiring, firing and competition for a limited amount of entry-level developer roles. But they said they’re still optimistic about the future.

“I think our school, Metro, is doing a good job at adjusting to AI's presence,” Fleenor said. “I think the teachers are very responsive to what they're seeing… One of our strengths is flexibility.”

“I am happy that I studied computer science, because it's really fun and I really like it,” Ball said. “And I think that the industry is so disrupted right now… [But] I think it's exciting to be on the cutting edge, and there will be new stuff to do, and I'm excited to do that.”

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