How University Students Use Claude • Hacker News Board

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#551

Post by deepsun » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 9:43 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #474

pja wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The promise of the expansion of this kind of tutorial teaching to everyone via AI is great. The problem is keeping students honest with themselves.

At the end of the day you can't force people to learn if they don't want to. As a society we need to be okay with failing people who deserve to fail and not drag people across the finish line at the expense of diluting the degrees of everyone else who actually put in effort.

I only partially agree with "you can't force people". I think that all people are just like children, but bigger. You can force a kid to not eat to much sugar, even when they want to.

Same with education, for example you can financially force people to learn, say, computer science instead of liberal arts. Even when they don't like it. It's harder, less efficient, but possible.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#552

Post by zebomon » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #339

zebomon wrote: post #83

The writing is irrelevant. Who cares if students don't learn how to do it? Or if the magazines are all mostly generated a decade from now? All of that labor spent on writing wasn't really making economic sense. The problem with that take is this: it was never about the act of writing. What we lose, if we cut humans out of the equation, is writing as a proxy for what actually matters, which is thinking. You'll soon no…

What we lose if we cut humans out of the equation is the soul and heart of reflection, creativity, drama, comedy, etc. All those have, at the base of them, the experience of being human, something an LLM does not and will never have.

I agree!

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#553

Post by taftster » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:32 PM UTC

theamk wrote: post #237

taftster wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to go and try to bench 300lbs, I would absolutely need a spotter to rescue me. Taking on more weight than I can possibly achieve is a setup for failure. Sure, I should probably practice benching 150lbs. That would be a good challenge for me and I would benefit from that experience. But 300lbs would crush me.

Sadly, ChatGPT is like a spotter that takes over at the smallest hint of struggle. Yes, you are not going to get crushed, but you won't get any workout done either. You really want start with a smaller weight, and increment it in steps as you progress. You know, like a class or something. And when you do those exercises, you really want to be lifting those weights yourself, and not rely on spotter for every rep.

We're stretching the metaphor here. I know, kind of obnoxious.

If I have accidentally lifted too much weight, I want a spotter that can immediately give me relief. But yes, you're right. If I am always getting a spot, then I'm not really lifting my own weight and indeed not making any gains.

I think the question was, "I'm stuck on this code, and I don't see an obvious answer." Now the lazy student is going to ask for help prematurely. But that doesn't preclude ChatGPT's use to only the lazy.

If I'm stuck and I'm asking for insight, I think it's brilliant that ChatGPT can act as a spotter and give some immediate relief. No different than asking for a tutor. Yes maybe ChatGPT gives away the whole answer when all you needed is a hint. That's the difference between pure human intelligence and just the glorified search engine that is AI.

And quite probably, this could be a really awesome way in which AI learning models could evolve in the context of education. Maybe ChatGPT doesn't give you the whole answer, instead it can just give you the hint you need to consider moving forward.

Microsoft put out a demo/video of a grad student using Copilot in very much this way. Basically the student was asking questions and Copilot was giving answers that were in the frame of "did you think about this approach?" or "consider that there are other possibilities", etc. Granted, mostly a marketing vibe from MSFT, but this really demonstrates a vision for using LLMs as a means for true learning, not just spoiling the answer.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#554

Post by idonotknowwhy » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:59 PM UTC

jjmaestro wrote: post #443

andai wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a system based on randomness for a process that must occur deterministically is probably the wrong solution. I'm running into similar issues trying to use LLMs for logic and reasoning. They can do it (surprisingly well, once you disable the friendliness that prevents it), but you get a different random subset of correct answers every time. I don't know if setting temperature to 0 would help. You'd get the same…

> They can do it (surprisingly well, once you disable the friendliness that prevents it) ... Interesting! :D Do you mind sharing the prompt(s) that you use to do that? Thanks!!

Have you tried Deepseek-R1?

I run it locally and read the raw thought process, find it very useful (can be ruthless at times) seeing this before it tags on the friendliness.

Then you can see it's planning process to tag on the warmth/friendliness "but the user seems proud of... so I need to acknowledge..."

I don't think Gemini's "thoughts" are the raw CoT process, they're summarized / cleaned up by a small model before returned to you (same as OpenAI models).

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#555

Post by Jedd » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 2:00 AM UTC

akimbostrawman wrote: post #465

Jedd wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these examples are done by specialist because I don't see many cars being build by dentists. I'm not sure how you get from pre-agricultural humans developing fire, to dentists building cars. I don't doubt that after fire was 'understood', there was specialisation to some degree, probably , around management of fire, what burns well, how best to cook, etc. But any claim that fire was the result of specialisat…

The discovery of fire itself was not progress, but how to use it very much is. They most likely didn't have a "discover fire" specialization in the modern sense but I doubt the one first to create a fire starter was afterwards deligated to only collect berries. The discovery and creation of something obviously often comes before the specialization or it would otherwise be impossible to discover and create anything. >…

I dispute your foundational claim that discovery of things != progress.

I concur that semantics have a) overtaken this thread, and b) are part of my complaint with OP when they claimed all historical progress was the result of specialisation.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#556

Post by azemetre » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #313

azemetre wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash cards are some of the least effective ways to learn FYI and retain info.

I'll bite. Would you care to back that up somehow? Or at least elaborate. Spaced repetition as it's more commonly known has been quite studied, and is anecdotally very popular on HN and reddit. Albeit more for some subject than others

Give me another day and I'll respond in full; but my thesis is taken from the book "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" which was written by a group of neuro- and cognitive scientists on what are the most effective ways to learn.

The one chapter that stood out very clear, especially in a college setting, was how inefficient flash cards were compare to other methods like taking a practice exam instead.

There are a lot of executive summaries on the book and I've posted comments in support of their science backed methods as well.

It's also something I'm personally testing myself this year regarding programming since I've had great success doing their methods in other facets of my life.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#557

Post by bdangubic » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #300

pugio wrote: post #187

I've used AI for one of the best studying experiences I've had in a long time: 1. Dump the whole textbook into Gemini, along with various syllabi/learning goals. 2. (Carefully) Prompt it to create Anki flashcards to meet each goal. 3. Use Anki (duh). 4. Dump the day's flashcards into a ChatGPT session, turn on voice mode, and ask it to quiz me. Then I can go about my day answering questions. The best part is that if…

Flash cards are some of the least effective ways to learn FYI and retain info.

I used flashcards with my daughter since she was 1.5 years old. she is 12 now and religiously uses flashcards for all learning. and I’d size her up against anyone using any other technique for learning whatsoever

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#558

Post by theamk » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 3:53 AM UTC

taftster wrote: post #553

theamk wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, ChatGPT is like a spotter that takes over at the smallest hint of struggle. Yes, you are not going to get crushed, but you won't get any workout done either. You really want start with a smaller weight, and increment it in steps as you progress. You know, like a class or something. And when you do those exercises, you really want to be lifting those weights yourself, and not rely on spotter for every rep.

We're stretching the metaphor here. I know, kind of obnoxious. If I have accidentally lifted too much weight, I want a spotter that can immediately give me relief. But yes, you're right. If I am always getting a spot, then I'm not really lifting my own weight and indeed not making any gains. I think the question was, "I'm stuck on this code, and I don't see an obvious answer." Now the lazy student is going to ask for…

Sure, this is possible. Also Chegg is an "innovative learning tool", not a way to cheat.

I agree that it's not that different than asking a tutor though, assuming it's a personal tutor whom are you paying so they won't ever refuse to answer. I've never had access to someone like that, but I can totally believe that if I did, I would graduate without learning much.

Back to ChatGPT: during my college times I've had plenty of times when I was really struggling, I remember feeling extremely frustrated when my projects would not work, and spending long hours in the labs. I was able to solve this myself, without any outside help, be it tutors or AI - and I think this was the most important part of my education, probably at least as important as all the lectures I went to. As they say, "no pain, no gain".

That said, our discussion is kinda useless - it's not like we can convince college students to stop using AI. The bad colleges will pass everyone (this already happens), the good colleges will adapt (probably by assigning less weight to homework and more weight to in-class exams). Students will have another reason to fail the class: in additional to classic "I spend whole semester partying/playing computer games instead of studying", they would also say "I never opened books and had ChatGPT do all assignments for me, why am I failing tests?"

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#559

Post by rglynn » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:40 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #151

moojacob wrote: post #86

How can I, as a student, avoid hindering my learning with language models? I use Claude, a lot. I’ll upload the slides and ask questions. I’ve talked to Claude for hours trying to break down a problem. I think I’m learning more. But what I think might not be what’s happening. In one of my machine learning classes, cheating is a huge issue. People are using LMs to answer multiple choice questions on quizzes that are o…

Only use LLMs for half of your work, at most. This will ensure you continue to solidify your fundamentals. It will also provide an ongoing reality check. I’d also have sessions / days where I don’t use AI at all. Use it or lose it. Your brain, your ability to persevere through hard problems, and so on.

I definitely catch myself reaching for the LLM because thinking is too much effort. It's quite a scary moment for someone who prides themself on their ability to think.

Re: How University Students Use Claude

#560

Post by sandspar » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 5:01 AM UTC

There's never mention of integrity or honor in these discussions. As if students are helpless against their own cheating. Cheating is shameful. Students should be ashamed to use AI to cheat. But nobody expects that from them for some reason.