A college student from Florida had a completely warranted crashout on social media, bringing to light what many other students have felt: the utter bleakness of higher education in the U.S. right now. And one of the biggest problems she claims to see is rampant use of AI.
“College is no longer a rewarding experience for people that actually try,” Ashley (TikTok/Biggiesbhipsahoy) says. And although she states she’s been trying to make the most of the experience, the problems are stretching her patience. Aside from most of her classes being three-hour long lectures, “I think I’m one of the only people in my class that does not use AI for things,” Ashley says.
One example she gives is a class she had previously failed at and was retaking. Given that the class only had a mid-term and a final, she tried a practice exam. Those aren’t graded, so it should be a good litmus test for what you need to know. She fails the practice test with a 50%, only to then retake and“cheat” and get a 90%. “Why is the only way to pass this class cheating?” Ashley says, clearly frustrated.
Ashley then brings up inconsistency with teachers, specifically with changing assignments. To her, this completely undermines any student putting in the work by doing assignments early, which she says is something she does. Ashley has noticed on several occasion—just this semester—of the teacher changing the due date or upending the instructions altogether.
“It gets so much better,” Ashley says in her TikTok video. After handing in a seven-page essay, of which she needed only five, she ended up with an 85%. “That’s the worst [expletive] grade I’ve ever received on an essay ever.” The reason? “He says I over-researched,” Ashley says, and promptly has a meltdown. How do you over-research on a college essay?
Ashley goes to great lengths to figure out if she might’ve done something wrong. She claims some of the students told her they “ChatGPTed” their paper. Not only were their papers apparently “under three pages,” the range of grades were between 87 and 91%.
The cherry on top, Ashley shares, is that a student’s paper goes through a check, which should pick any use of AI, but it’s even failing at that. According to Ashley, the AI program claims 25% of her paper was AI. It also apparently struggled with recognizing sources, too.
Ashley’s experience lines up pretty well with research conducted by the Lumina Foundation, where over half—nearly 3 out of 5 students—were using AI on a “daily or weekly” basis. If so many students are willing to use it, just how many teachers are using it too? It’d just be a feedback loop of AI feeding on AI. Not to mention extremely alarming and dangerous if students are getting degrees in fields like medicine.
The Internet Reacts to Ashley’s TikTok Video
Given the responses in the comments on TikTok, this doesn’t seem to be a one-off thing. Others weren’t just sharing their experience of crummy teachers, but problems with AI, too.
“A 2000 word essay took me 3 days and just flagged for AI,” wrote one viewer on TikTok. It has over 25,000 Likes, with several commenters sharing that they too were the victims of AI-checkers.
“I watched my classmate use ChatGPT to generate a peer review of MY ESSAY,” wrote another. Several people gave advice, suggesting they report it to the teachers. Others argued their feedback wouldn’t have been useful anyway if they resorted to using AI.
An English teacher even stepped in to give Ashley props. “You’re doing it right, skipping the AI. You’re actually learning.” And that’s great, but we’ll have to contend with an entire generation working off incredibly inaccurate information because of AI.
