As artificial intelligence reshapes classrooms and careers, CU Denver engineering students are learning that workforce readiness requires knowing when, why and whether to use AI.
When computer science student Elyas Larfi arrived at his most recent internship, pressure was already on to implement artificial intelligence into his workflow. That shift had happened quickly. Just a few years earlier, during his first internship, AI barely factored into his day-to-day work. This time, it was fully a part of the job.
For Larfi, a computer science student at CU Denver’s College of Engineering, Design and Computing, the experience offered an early look at how professions are being rewritten in real time during this technological shift. Workplace conversation around AI had moved far beyond whether we should use it: AI is a given in many workplaces, now the question is how can we put this tool to good use?
That distinction is increasingly important for students preparing to enter an AI-enabled workforce. In many cases, employers aren’t just expecting graduates to use AI; they’re looking to them to role model how it should be used.
This is the impetus behind CU Denver’s new AI Hub, which opened this week as a campuswide space where students can experiment with emerging tools, build AI fluency and examine what responsible use looks like across disciplines.
The space is built around a reality students like Larfi are already encountering: Today’s workforce is looking to hire folks who know how to leverage AI well.
The Industry Wants Students to Help Figure It Out
“Most companies do not understand what to do with AI,” Larfi said, even as he described being encouraged to use AI as much as possible. That contradiction puts recent graduates in an unusual position. They are entering organizations that already have access to powerful AI tools but are still determining how to turn that capability into better work.
Increasingly, new graduates are not just being told to use AI. They are being asked to help lead AI implementation within their respective industries.
Larfi saw the distinction firsthand this past Summer. He found himself doing less of every step manually and more directing, evaluating and deciding where to go next. AI could work across enormous codebases, take on tasks in the background and complete work that once demanded hours of an engineer’s attention. Instead of spending hours sifting through literally thousands of lines of code, Larfi was able to spend that time working through harder problems, testing ideas and focusing his expertise where it mattered most.
AI’s value was not more output, but having time back from repetitive tasks to innovate. That requires expertise beyond the tool itself. The strongest AI user is the person who can combine AI’s speed and scale with enough disciplinary expertise to produce something better because of it.
The AI Hub gives students a place to practice that combination before the stakes are higher, building a model for the kind of AI-enabled work and the confidence to enter workplaces and lead that change.
Learning With a Tool That Can Give You the Answer
CU Denver students did not wait for a dedicated space to start building this competency. In Fall 2024, as generative AI started to change how students studied, coded and worked, the AI Student Association was formed to learn how to engage with the technology effectively. Today, the organization has grown to nearly 300 members, mirroring AI’s own trajectory of growth.
Larfi doubts many if any students are avoiding AI altogether across campus. What matters, he said, is how they use it — a distinction already playing out in the way students learn.
For Larfi, AI can make learning easier. When he gets stuck, he uses a chatbot to pinpoint what he does not understand and work through a concept until it clicks.
But easier access to answers also makes it easier to bypass understanding. Fellow student Thomas Phommarath sees the risk: AI can get a student to the answer without requiring them to understand how they got there. The output may look the same. The learning is not.
For the AISA student president Maab Taha, the distinction as a matter of discipline. Learning remains a skill, she said, and students still need enough understanding to recognize when AI gets something wrong. She says that being a part of this community has made her feel more capable in a world being reshaped by the technology.
That judgment becomes more important as the technology improves. When anyone can generate the answers, actually having the expertise to properly test AI’s limits and recognize where tech can add value is an advantage.
A Campuswide Place to Practice
That is the opportunity behind CU Denver’s new AI Hub.The 2,000-square-foot AI Hub on the first floor of the North Classroom gives our students the space to prepare for a workforce where knowing what to do with AI makes them a competitive candidate in their careers.
Developed from an initiative within the College of Engineering, Design and Computing in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Office of Information Technology, the Hub will give students across disciplines a place to build AI fluency, experiment with emerging tools and develop responsible approaches to using them.
That matters at a moment when expectations around AI are changing almost as quickly as the technology. The specific tools and emerging thttps://www.ucdenver.edu/offices/office-of-information-technology/pac/ai-project-initiative/ai-learning-hubechnologies will change. Perspectives on AI will continue to develop and inform how we choose to implement tech in our lives.
What students will continue to need is the judgment to approach new technology, understand its limits and determine how it can make their own expertise more valuable.
That is what makes the AI Hub important in this moment, beyond being a place to learn the latest tech, it is a place to practice working in a world being reshaped by it.
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