Which general studies course would you recommend for all students besides the current ones in Nigerian universities? We suggest “Prompt Engineering Techniques”. You can go with “AI Prompting Essentials” or Prompting Techniques & Methods to overcome Nigerian Society of Engineers’s reservation of the word “engineering” in non-engineering programs. Let me explain why we think that way.
In most universities in Nigeria, there are courses which fall under the umbrella of General Studies (GST) and in most universities they include Use of English, Logic and Philosophy (Humanities), Polity and Economy of Nigeria, etc, understanding that many universities call them different names. Largely, these courses are required early year courses irrespective of the program the student is enrolled to undertake.
But over the last two years, we have noted that a student’s ability to ask the right questions to available technologies, including AI, is even more important than the student knowing the answer. Simply, we need to educate and train students with basic foundational means to ask the right questions and get the right answers from the machines and computing systems of the future. In that AI future, understanding the prompting technique and methodology will be useful. And I think it is as basic as the requirement of the Use of English which enables us to communicate with humans. But here, we need to communicate with machines; feel free to call it evolved Use of English for AI!
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“Prompt engineering” in AI refers to the practice of carefully crafting specific instructions, called “prompts,” to guide a generative AI model to produce accurate and relevant responses by providing the right context and information for the desired task, essentially maximizing the model’s capabilities through well-designed input phrasing. This course will equip students with the right prompting skills for foundation, LLMs and GenAI levels of AI. I think every great school should make it a GST course.
In the next Tekedia Mini-MBA which begins on Feb 10, Tekedia Institute is introducing Prompting Essentials to provide the basis for our Learners to progress on this, focusing on the business management and leadership aspect; nothing technical as we’re a business school. We will demonstrate with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini how to win the communication of the future.
Comment on Feed
Comment: But prompting is quite easy. I don’t think that you will have enough to fill a semester coursework
My Response: In Use of English, you need two semesters to learn how to communicate with humans after spending all the time in secondary school learning English. Then, the Use of Languages for Machines (yes, that is what that AI prompting is about), you think it is not a full semester course. Provided the course is not about “define prompt engineering”, “name the 3 people who gave a speech about prompt engineering you kno”, list “3 types of prompt workers in Chicago” … you get the idea of our normal Nigerian way of teaching, a semester may not even be enough.
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