New course aims to bridge AI skills gap in undergraduates

As recent graduates prepare to enter the workforce, they are noticing a consistent pattern: More employers across all industries are requiring their employees to be well-versed in AI technology.

But do graduates feel that their education sufficiently prepared them to work closely with AI?

According to data from the AI Workforce Integration and Skill Enhancement (AI-WISE) project, the answer is a resounding no.

Clinical Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology Dr. Laura McNeill and her team found that just 35.4% of recent graduates feel their undergraduate degrees sufficiently prepared them for AI integration in the workplace while 91.1% believe that universities should regularly update AI curriculum according to industry feedback.

With funding from a generous Rising Tide grant, McNeill and team members Dr. Lesley Regalado, associate professor at University of Texas at Arlington and UA adjunct professor, and instructional technology doctoral students Stephen Abu, Mohi Uddin, Mengshi (Victoria) Pei and David Awoyemi set out to determine what AI skills industries want workers to have and what recent graduates wish they had known about AI prior to entering the workforce.

For two years, the team conducted focus groups with 13 industry leaders, including representatives from Mercedes-Benz and Boeing, surveyed more than 110 nationwide employers and received responses from 50 recent University of Alabama and University of Texas at Arlington graduates.

The data showed that not only do employers want students to graduate knowing how to think about AI, use it and be able to navigate various interfaces, they also want them to be able to articulate the reasoning behind AI-based decisions and to leverage how they can use AI tools to solve issues pertinent to the organization.

“Presentation skills matter. Communication skills matter. Teamwork matters. So, what we have done is create a new course based on all that data,” McNeill said.

“AI Fluency for the Workforce” (CIE 499), a 3-credit, 15-week online course available to all UA undergraduates, will begin May 29 with a curriculum designed entirely on the documented workforce data collected by the AI-WISE project team. Students will learn about task-specific prompting, critical evaluation of AI outputs, ethical and responsible use, human-AI collaboration and organizational risk awareness while gaining firsthand experience using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Claude. They will use a variety of UA-approved interfaces to complete career-based assignments and build portfolios of their work.

“I want students to be able to use AI safely and ethically. I want them to have the skills to secure the career that they want, and this is an easy way for them to show employers that they have those skills and can prove it,” McNeill said.

The reality is that an employer who has to choose between two candidates with equal skillsets, training and background will hire the person who has AI experience. This even includes businesses like Milo’s, Aldi and Tractor Supply, she said.

“They aren’t looking for you to know everything about ChatGPT or Copilot – this is about wanting you to know how to ask the right questions, how to prompt then critically examine and evaluate that output,” McNeill said.

The AI-WISE project data proves that there is a measurable gap between what AI skills graduates entering the workforce can offer and what different industries need. Dr. McNeill, her grant team and the College of Education are working to bridge that gap, and it begins with CIE 499.

“There is so much critical thinking that goes into using artificial intelligence properly, and if you aren’t asking the right questions, you won’t get the right answers,” McNeill said. “I think we are doing a bit of a disservice to our students if we don’t allow them to explore these tools, because when they graduate, they will be expected to know how to use them.”