Modern Resources
11 Aug 2025
I. Introduction
Nowdays, Ai is used in so many different ways, whether it be for learning, completing projects and work, or even just for fun like making images with prompts or even just talking to them for fun. Ai has become a big resource we use today, especially in education, there are a lot of students who rely on Ai for help to do work. Not that all students use Ai to just generate answers, we also use Ai to help explain concepts we don’t understand, which would be the more effective use for Ai. When it comes to Software Engineering specifically, however, Ai can be used to code everything, and they do it quite effectively and efficiently. I have also taken advantage of this modern resource for this class and generally, I use ChatGPT and Github Co-Pilot.
II. Personal Experiences with Ai
1. Experience WODs
In all honesty, for the WODs with a walkthrough video, which almost all of the WODs did, I have not used Ai in the slightest. This is because I’m usually able to complete the WOD after watching the video, then attempting to do it on my own. And if there ever was a part I was stuck on or lost, I would just refer to the video.
2. Practice WODs
This is generally the same as what I said before, but if there were no video to help me, I did have the help with ChatGPT to tell me what steps I needed to do. For example “based off this (copy paste assignment prompt) without telling me the answer directly, give me the steps to complete this.”
3. In-Class WODs
If this is referring to the WODs via quizzes, where there was no walkthrough video and we were timed, then I did make use of ChatGPT mainly. Again, it was mainly used to help point me in the right direction, then if I were stuck, I would ask how to do something in specific. However, as I am writing this, I am unable to think of a specific example. But generally, it would usually always be something more smaller, rather than asking it to do the entire assignment for me.
4. Essays
I generally write my own essays, the only time I ever ask help for Ai for my essays, it would be to explain the concept of something that I don’t understand. Because I’m unable to write an essay when I don;t understand the prompt or concept.
5. Final Project
The whole problem I had when trying to work on my final project was that whenever I would open the code, I would always get this JSX error and some other random errors, so I would always have to ask ChatGPT how to resolve the errors. For example “how do I fix this (copy paste error message)?”
6. Learning a concept/tutorial
As mentioned before, I have taken advantage of ChatGPT to help explain any concepts I did not understand in this class, and I have also used it to point me in the right direction whhenever I was lost on what to do next. For example “can you explain this (copy paste concept) and show how I would use it”, in the context of coding, it would usually show me a small snippet of code on where and how its used.
7. Ansering a question in class or Discord
I can’t say I’ve used Ai for answering any question in class or discord.
8. Asking or answering a smart-question
I can’t say that I’ve used Ai for this either, not because I thought it was more important to figure it out on my own, but more so that I was just able to without the help of Ai.
9. Coding example
I remember I would use ChatGPT and prompt to for something like “how do I use ___ in react/bootstrap” when we were first doing react and bootstrap. (I would prompt this when there was no walkthrough video)
10. Explaining Code
Whenever I would ask ChatGPT to explain code, its usually when I ask it to explain the code it gives me when I prompt it to generate a snippet of code. This is usually for the sake of my own understanding and so I know how it works.
11. Writing code
I would prompt ChatGPT to help me write small snippets of code, and also Github Co-Pilot would often generate useful code whenever I was coding. For example “how do I use .map in typescript?”
12. Documenting code
The only time this would occur is when I ask ChatGPT to generate comments on how my code works or to help me understand where everything is. For example, when we would build our own website using bootstrap, I would ask ChatGPT to comment where stuff like the NavBar is and where the other components are. For example: “(copy paste my code) generate comments of where things are like the navbar.”
13. Quality assurance
I would ask ChatGPT “whats wrong with this (copy past code)” whenever I had an error. And if the lint errors was more than just the indent spaces, I would ask ChatGPT how I could fix the error.
14. Other uses in ICS 314 not listed
I don’t think I’ve used Ai more than the listed above.
III. Impact on Learning and Understanding
I think as long as you use Ai in the right way, you’re still able to learn, if not the same, but better. Since this was an ASYNC online class, and I felt like reaching out was a bit hard, asking Ai to help explain concepts to help me understand was really big for me in this class. Using Ai in this class did help a lot when it came to completing assignments and understanding concepts.
IV. Practical Applications
Outside of ICS 314, I think Ai is more so EVERYWHERE. ChatGPT has helped me with a bunch of stuff, not only helping with my school work, but whenever I have questions about literally anything, I can always depend on ChatGPT to give me a straight answer.
I believe that Ai could help address real-world software engineering challenges because Ai is usually more smarter than the normal person, and it would always help getting a different perspective when it comes to solving an issue, even if its coming from an Ai.
V. Challenges and Opportunities
Some challenges or limitations that I have encountered whilst using Ai in the course would be that if something is wrong in one part of the project, it could also affect another part. For example, I forget what exact assignment it was, but I had an error where the code was expecting like a string string string but instead was getting a string string number, an with Ai, you can only really send it one file at a time, like my page.tsx looks fine but something else is causing an error. So it was really up to me to go and find what was causing the issue so that ChatGPT could help me resolve the problem.
VI. Comparative Analysis
Traditional software engineering education, through lectures, textbooks, and manual coding assignments, emphasizes developing a fundamental understanding from the ground up. While this method can be slower and less engaging, it establishes strong and long-lasting skills.
In contrast, AI-enhanced learning is more faster and more personalized experience. AI tools can deliver instant feedback, generate examples, and automate repetitive tasks, which increases engagement and making the learning process better.
VII. Future Considerations
I think that Ai would play a big role in the future when it comes to software engineering education. Some areas of improvement or potential challenges would be the misuse of Ai, rather than using Ai in a way where you learn, some would use it to just solve problems directly, which isn’t inheritly bad since you can still learn from it in a way, you don’t learn as much compared to if you would solve the problem yourself.
VIII. Conclusion
Overall, I think the use of Ai in this class, especially this one during the summer, is definetly helpful. I would definetly reccomend that Ai is used in a way that it doesn’t tell you the answer directly, but more so the right direction on how to solve problems, and if it comes down to it, its fine for Ai to give an answer as long as you have tried to solve the problem.