Ask Dr. Ross
"Ask Dr. Ross" answers the important and nagging questions parents and potential college students raise about higher education. Topics include preparing for college, avoiding student debt, and secrets to good grades. Hosted by award-winning professor Catherine Ross, Ph.D., and student producer Ashley Worley, listeners can ask their own questions by emailing ADRquestions@gmail.com.
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Ask Dr. Ross
Introducing Co-Host Ashley Worley
It's official.
With student producers Nathan Witt and Michaela Murphy passing the torch, there's a new voice on the podcast: sophomore Mass Communications student, Ashley Worley! Join Dr. Ross and her new co-host in an introductory sit-down chat.
In typical ADR fashion, they find much more to discuss than your standard icebreakers. The conversation ranges from get-to-know-you questions to discussions about media impact, transitioning from homeschool to college, and the evolving landscape of AI. Whether you're a fellow homeschooler, passionate media student, or just curious about the world of higher ed, this episode is for you.
Have questions for Ashley or Dr. Ross? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast. It's created to give you info to succeed at college. Our hosts are highly qualified. Dr Catherine Ross is a member of the University of Texas System's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She's also a popular professor of 19th century English literature. Ask Dr Ross is a community service of the University of Texas at Tyler.
Speaker 2:Hello, this is a new season of Ask Dr Ross and I have an exciting announcement, which is I have a new producer. Nathan, our wonderful former producer, is graduating and we've got a new one, and this is Ashley Worley. The purpose of this session is to introduce you to Ashley and to give her a little chance to practice her own on-air voice. So let's start out by Ashley. Would you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell me about what you're studying now at UT Tyler and what else you're doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. I'm a mass communications major. I'm a sophomore. My minor is graphic design. I'm just on the verge of changing it to a new minor in the literature and languages department, which is digital storytelling and interactive design, and I'm really excited to start doing work on that. My interest is more in just all forms of media production. I've loved stories since I was a little kid, and I think all the different ways of telling them are just really fascinating.
Speaker 2:So you're studying mass communications. Not everybody would know what that means. What are some of the typical courses you're taking?
Speaker 3:It's funny. I get that question a lot For being communications majors. Sometimes it's not always well communicated. What we do, mass comm is like a sort of broad umbrella term for all forms of media production. Here their degree plans have a pretty heavy emphasis on either journalism or advertising and public relations and so I'm in the public relations route has a little bit more creativity, I think, or a little more flexibility with the type of things you create. Some of the typical classes I am in feature writing right now with Professor Mogul. He's fantastic. I'm in several graphic design classes and there's lots of writing in Mass Comm. I was in multimedia production, video production, just various sorts of production outlets, pr classes.
Speaker 2:So, in addition to going to classes, I think you're doing a few things too.
Speaker 3:Yes, just a few. So this is actually one of the new things that I'm doing and I'm really excited about. I am working two jobs at the moment. They're both part-time because they only let you work like 19 and a half hours as a student, but I work as a tour guide for the admissions office. About to wrap that up, we have our last couple of tours this semester. I'm so sad.
Speaker 2:It's fun meeting new kids, isn't it? And introducing your campus and talking to young people. They're all very excited to be here. It's really fun to see their faces, isn't it.
Speaker 3:It really is. It's a good time because you kind of never know what's going to happen. But when you're able to get the energy up for your group, you know and help them find the resources they need. Help them learn more about what life would be like, because it's scary. You know, going into college just blind Touring has been a good time it really has. So I work that job. It's about like one day a week and then I work the special events like Patriot Premiere. Those are like half day, all day type event things, and I also now work at the digital design studio.
Speaker 2:So I'm a undergraduate assistant and so you're getting a lot of on the job training. It's like an internship. Are you being paid for the digital design studio work? I am yes. Okay, that's even better, isn't it? And when you say that, what exactly are you doing?
Speaker 3:Well, at the moment we haven't really kicked into gear some of the other things we were planning. I am an assistant to kind of like take management things off Michaela's plate, so like managing the hours, like somebody has to be in the studio to keep it open. You know she has a lot going on and so sometimes just having to be in that one place is difficult, and so I can step in.
Speaker 2:So the digital design studio is set up for students and what are some of the options that students have there? What are the facilities or the opportunities they have with that?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's a small quiet room which can be useful for pretty much any kind of media project you're needing to produce. I know Michaela was wanting to encourage students to come in and record podcasts there. We do have USB mics.
Speaker 2:We have a cabinet full of stuff that nobody ever uses, and it makes me really sad. Soon, they're just sort of learning that it's a new thing, aren't they?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and that's part of what this new job is supposed to be as well Creating a social media page for the design studio. Pushing different like online content to try and create awareness for the design studio. Pushing different like online content to try and create awareness for the fact that it's there and what people can use it for. But yeah, we have podcast equipment in the studio. We have those USB mics and several sets of headphones that are really nice. We have several rolling desks and study spaces. There's a projector. So even if it's not like a media creation project, you can absolutely just come in and practice giving a presentation or if you don't really know how to work a projector, we'll come in and help you with that. Also, if you have a design project that's the other thing I was hired for is, if people have a design project, they're not really sure how to navigate, they can bring their homework in there and I'm sitting there and we can talk through it. We can look at the file and just kind of work through some of those things.
Speaker 2:Because design is always a part of what we do, isn't it? One of the things that I thought I'd mention here is that you are starting to take on a minor in the literature and languages department which is called digital storytelling and interactive design. So here we are, a classical English literature and American literature and world literature department. We still teach Shakespeare and Wordsworth, but we also have recognized that the new literature of the day is oftentimes some sort that students are mixing their classical training and the humanities, if you will, with all the fancy new stuff that's going on digitally and on the Internet and social media and so on. So it's really neat that you've hopped on all of that so quickly. Neat that you've hopped on all of that so quickly. Now one of the questions I always like to ask students what was the road you walked on to get from a sixth grader, or maybe even a third or fourth grader, to a college student?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. Actually, it was kind of always an established precedent, I think, in my house, like they were expecting us to go to college. They talked about it to us when we were kids and it was just kind of expected. So I was homeschooled from like first through actually first through 12th. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a long time to be homeschooled, my goodness.
Speaker 3:It was, yeah, but I really enjoyed it and I think we got great like education out of it. Helped us a lot too, because we moved around a little bit, but yeah. So I was homeschooled and we also went to like these homeschool co-ops there's several of them in the area. We participated in those and got other learning from them and also some social life, right? Oh, absolutely, you know, that's one of the things people are always like how did you make friends as a homeschooler? And I'm like, well, we talk to people, uh-huh, lots of them. Yeah, so I think those co-ops are really beneficial with college preparation because they're set up actually a lot like college.
Speaker 3:Like when I got in here, I was scared, you know, the first day I was like I don't really know how this is going to work. It works a lot like homeschooling, weirdly enough, because in our co-op it meets one day a week, maybe two. Enough, because in our co-op it meets one day a week, maybe two. So you go on that particular day, you have class times and schedules that usually you were involved in selecting and you go, you learn, you get your homework and you have the entire week to manage it.
Speaker 2:So you really do have to create your own schedule. You have to learn how to manage time, which is one of the hardest things. A lot of college students who didn't get homeschooled but who went to public schools or into private schools as well the day is pretty well planned for you and they give you study halls and all of that and homework and things and it's due the next day. So you have to sit down that night and do it, whereas in a college schedule you might have a Monday, wednesday, friday schedule or a Tuesday, thursday. You have these big gaps of time that are yours to use or waste. Now, not everybody that goes to UT Tyler was homeschooled and not everybody who goes to UT Tyler was told from the beginning you're going to go to college. So what would you tell other students who are looking to go to college? Of course you haven't been in public school so maybe you don't know. But your advice to kids coming up maybe 7th graders, 8th graders, high school students about what to expect from college?
Speaker 3:Definitely, the time management is a huge part of it. I feel like I had pretty good preparation for that with homeschooling, but it's still an adjustment Creating your own schedule, becoming involved, the other activities that happen on campus, like clubs and all the student organizations.
Speaker 2:The media, all the things that you're doing, because I don't think you mentioned that you're on the talent staff, which is our newspaper and it's not just newspaper. What is the talent called? Now it's called the Student media organization and used to just be the newspaper. Now it's everything right.
Speaker 3:Right and they still run news. I published a couple of journalism articles with them and feature style stuff, but they still do news. But they're also pushing more in the direction of multimedia. So lots of social media. They're very active on Instagram right now. They've created a broadcast which I'm hoping to assemble a package for if I ever get time. But they have a broadcast. They do all sorts of different things. So did your parents go to college? They did, yes, they met in college. Actually, they're both from here originally and so they were at TJC is when they met.
Speaker 2:Oh, how neat. A lot of times they say that college is where you will meet your best friends and possibly your sweetheart for life, so it's not a bad place to go for that reason too, but I think it's like to have four or five courses, and they may not understand all the pressures of it, but we're set up for what we call first-time college students and also students like you. I wanted to ask you about your homeschooling. Was it your mother or your father, or both, that taught you? How did that work?
Speaker 3:Kind of both. So with homeschooling you can set it up a lot of different ways and I think all of them work, assuming you're not just using homeschooling as an excuse to play Minecraft all day and call it that you were learning physics. But if you set it up right, you're purchasing curriculum that your parent can teach you, but it's also set up to where the kid can start to teach themselves. So we were in, like, I think, as young as like fourth grade or third I think I was in third grade actually and they bought a reading program. It was discs on a laptop. At the time it was called milestone reading program and it helped me so much like I was reading, I think, on a fifth grade level within like one completion of that course when I was in third grade. It was super helpful.
Speaker 3:So there's great curriculums with homeschooling. You buy a curriculum and it's set up to where, even if your parent, you know, isn't an expert on it necessarily, this is their starting point and they can help you navigate it. Both of my parents were kind of our instructors, but I think my mom definitely did the most of it. They both worked and so they would always have like one of them with us and then they would alternate. Our dad was usually at home with us, and when our mom would come home, we'd be like here's our homework questions, we don't know how to do, and we would sit down and go through them.
Speaker 2:So your mom could help you with your homework a lot better than in a regular public school where there's a different teacher in the daytime. Huh, so you say us, so you have some siblings, yes, I have one sister.
Speaker 3:She goes here as well. Actually, she has one more semester before she graduates. She has a lot of nerve leaving me here.
Speaker 2:I know, I know. Well, tell me why did you pick UT Tyler, as opposed to lots of other places around the state of Texas or even the whole US?
Speaker 3:I did want to stay in Tyler. I really like it here. This is kind of where our family roots are. Like I said, we did move around a good little bit, like I think when I was a baby we were in New York City and then, from the time I was like three to eight, I think, we were in LA. Then we've been here, just kind of, you know, came back to where all of our family actually is. So I did want to stay here. But also I'm here on scholarship from the Honors College and that was a big game changer because, since I'm living at home and I'm not on a meal plan, the Honors Scholarship covers, like my entire college experience.
Speaker 2:That's great, it's amazing. So you have freedom to do the Honors Program, which is a little more streamlined to your individual choices and skills, but you're going to be leaving college debt-free.
Speaker 3:Absolutely that was the real game-changer because, of course, it was the precedent. You know that we wanted to go to college and that we were trying to, but, honestly, I was going to go wherever the scholarship was, and this was the best one. Honestly, I was going to go wherever the scholarship was, and this was the best one.
Speaker 2:And, you know, for those who may or may not be homeschooled or who may or may not be eligible for an honors program, there are a variety of scholarships available, and in an earlier podcast we talked about all the different things that you can do. Really, it's important, as young as like seventh or eighth grade, for you and your family to start keeping an eye out for scholarships, whether they're for sports or musical talent, if your family has a military background, and things like that. Now, I believe when you mentioned New York and LA, I think you told me once that your father or your mother were involved in Right, my dad was an actor for a good little while that's actually what he like went to college for and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So he worked in Dallas. They had a house in Mesquite. Oddly enough, they were told that they would never be able to have kids, and so they just started to move around. They went to Washington DC, new York City. He was working a lot of like musicals and plays, did a couple of tours.
Speaker 2:That's an exciting life, Long before you all came along right tours.
Speaker 3:That's an exciting life, long before you all came along right Absolutely, and that was kind of what pushed them in that direction. They're like, well, you can't really raise kids. Well, sometimes in New York City or in LA either, I would think, right, it was a little bit difficult. So when they did realize that oh, we're having kids, huzzah. He kind of switched gears. He runs his own mortgage company. Now he's a mortgage broker. He still works out of home. He own mortgage company. Now he's a mortgage broker. He still works out of home. He worked out of home when we were in.
Speaker 2:LA as well, so what I'm getting at here. So you have some background in performance, media, public-facing kinds of communication, right?
Speaker 3:Somewhat. I mean, we definitely were surrounded by it. I would think I don't really know that the expectation was ever established that we would go into this sort of thing, but we just grew up surrounded by stories.
Speaker 2:Storytelling. Yeah Well, and you know, again and again, what I keep coming up against is that human stories are. Some see how fantastical they were, and then we see Harry Potter type stories, or Percy Jackson type stories. There are all sorts of ways that the imagination is captured by stories, and I think what you're studying mass communication, graphic design, digital storytelling you're right where you ought to be, huh.
Speaker 3:I honestly love it. And the co-op we went to the homeschool group was kind of STEM-focused. The only real branching out of that that we had was journalism and they kind of had to argue to make that a thing. So I wasn't really sure. I was like mass communications am I going to be able to apply that anywhere? But it sounds cool. And anyway when I got in I was like oh, this is exactly it.
Speaker 2:I just never really knew this was an option, and I think that's a lot of what happens in college is students don't really know. First of all, a lot of high school kids come in freshman in college or transfer after having some dual credit courses. Maybe as a sophomore you don't really know what you want to do for sure. I mean, a few people do. They've known since they were in seventh grade. They want to be a doctor or they want to be a vet or some other wonderful profession that they know something about.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times all we know about is what we see on television or in movies, and anybody who's a lawyer or a doctor or a professor or a teacher will tell you that what you see on TV is not what it's really like at all.
Speaker 2:And so you get to college and that's where we start to help you see, well, this is what it's really like to work in the media.
Speaker 2:This is what it's really like to be a historian or a nurse or an English professor or a business person and all those different things. So one of the things I always want to say to youngsters is that they're anxious about getting on with their lives and knowing what they're going to do when they grow up, and how can you possibly know for sure? You know it takes a while, and the good thing for you is that you've already been doing some of these things all along, and now you've got a chance through your jobs or an internship, because you're working with me as kind of an internship, isn't it? It's part of your digital design studio job, but it's also partly because you wanted to learn how to do podcasts, which brings me to the question of what in the world are podcasts, and which ones do you like especially, and what do you think they really do for us today? Because they're sort of a new thing, aren't they?
Speaker 3:They kind of are, and I think it's really interesting because I'm not totally familiar with, like the technology change that happened when we started to get podcasts as opposed to traditional forms of broadcast.
Speaker 2:I haven't really studied that kind of history, I just vaguely know it, but when technology started to become more accessible it became easier, and with the internet too, Well, and I think one of the innovations was when we started getting iPods a while back and everybody started having their own individual little music or digital player, and of course now it's the phone that does it for you. But I can remember, long before we had cell phones the way we do, everybody had an iPod and podcast, so you could walk around with something in your ear. If it wasn't your music, it could be an educational program or a sports program, or I'd like to listen to political podcasts and things like that. So there's really so many of them now. It's sort of astonishing, and, as you probably know, podcasts had a lot to do with this recent election, didn't they?
Speaker 3:I would think so. I haven't really heard much about that, though. So what happened Well?
Speaker 2:I know, for example, that Donald Trump went on the Joe Rogan podcast, which is one of the most famous and largest distribution in the world. I guess Kamala Harris went on, some others not on that particular one and they were able to reach a much broader audience that way, because it's sort of a self-selected. You know you pick the podcast you listen to. It's not like turning on the radio and squirreling around until you get things Although even now you turn on the radio you do different stations and things like that. So when you think about our podcast it's called Ask Dr Ross the idea was for the College of Arts and Sciences to make recordings available to folks in our community, maybe for our students to talk about different things like student success, how to talk to professors, what are some study skills. We have a lot of different things that we've been working on for students, but we also wanted to have a podcast available for people in the community. We were originally part of the short-lived public radio station that UT Tyler had, so we were broadcasting on the radio station. Although it had a small audience reach, it was still designed for local folks, people in Texas, in Tyler, in Smith County primarily. I don't think we got much past Smith County To talk to them about what's college like, what do you do to get into it, how do you pay for it, do's and don'ts and things like that.
Speaker 2:And so as we moved through the first year, we began to realize that we had a bunch of topics that we wanted to talk about, nathan and I including. One of the things Nathan was concerned about was just the way he could use what he learns in classes, like in political science, in economics, in the mass communications courses, to help him understand his world. So we launched some of those, and this year we're wanting to talk about some other things, including we're going to expand out and be talking to professors from around the University of Texas system and you're going to be my partner in all those things. So we get to talk to professors at UT Austin, the flagship, but there's also, as you probably know, there let's see if I can count them off there's a UT El Paso, there's a UT Rio Grande Valley, there's a UT Arlington, a UT Dallas, a UT San Antonio, a UT Permian Basin, a UT Dallas, a UT San Antonio, a UT Permian Basin, ut Tyler, ut Austin, of course, and now there's going to be Stephen F Austin.
Speaker 2:So we're going to want to talk to professors from around the state about some of the challenges of higher education. So that'll be kind of my job, but your job will be to be thinking about issues for college students. What are some of the issues you think we ought to be talking about this year? For students that you know, your classmates, the students that are a little bit above you, perhaps some students that you know that may be still being. They're still in the homeschool arena. What would you like for us to talk about? What do you think we need to share in this podcast?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question, and of course I'll be thinking about it more.
Speaker 2:Well, we're planning on having a lot of planning sessions, but I thought it'd be interesting for you to talk about it in this episode. So, people, we might get some call-ins from people who say, yes, do that one, or oh, don't do that one.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe this is just a personal thing, but I think it could be kind of beneficial to make a podcast episode about things homeschoolers should know about coming into college, Because I have a group of friends actually who went to the same co -op that I did and they're in UT Tyler right now, so they would probably be fine with coming to talk about it. But also, you know, I get funny looks sometimes when I mention that I'm homeschooled. There's like a stigma around it. I would say, which is fine, it's more humorous than anything else.
Speaker 2:Because there really isn't a stigma, is it? I mean, there's all kinds of folks who do homeschooling.
Speaker 3:Right, and there's a stereotype of what it looks like to be homeschooled, which is funny because it's partially true, but there are so many different ways to go about it and most people don't really know anything about it other than what you see in the movies, which is, well, they just sat at home and they read a book and they're quirky, they eat healthy food and they eat healthy food and they're allergic to everything. You know it's funny, but people usually ask stuff like I said, like how did you make friends? Or how was the transition to college Well?
Speaker 2:I will tell you that I have always had good experiences with the students that I've taught who were homeschooled. They have far less reluctance to speak up in class, which is a big issue. You know, learning how to speak up in class is one of the first things a lot of freshmen have to learn how to do, and a lot of times they'll sit just hunched down and kind of hunkered in their desk and oh no, is the teacher going to call on me? And in fact a big part of what college is about is learning how to express yourself, how to speak up for yourself, how to make a case or argue in a friendly way. Of course we don't mean ugly argument, but we just mean, in the terms of, you know, classical rhetorical argument, and I've found that most homeschoolers can do that. They're used to talking to grownups more often, probably because there's so few of you that it's just you and your siblings and your teacher, right?
Speaker 3:Right and also you know to make friends. As a homeschooler you join tons of other groups, just local, community things that happen, and it's not uncommon to just be involved in a lot of stuff that's happening. And so you talk to kids who are older than you, kids who are younger than you outside your grade, within your grade, adults. You just talk to everybody you know because that's your form of connection. You don't really have an inbuilt group.
Speaker 2:Right. You have to engage on your own. It's not done for you.
Speaker 3:And in a general sense it doesn't have to apply to homeschoolers, but an episode on just engagement.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh yes. Tell me about what you think about engagement, because I agree with you on that one.
Speaker 3:I think engagement is really important when you come into college. Sometimes the tendency is, I think, to just focus on the academic side of things when there's so much other things happening. This is a very important time of development and sometimes that kind of gets brushed under the rug because we get busy with homework and we get busy with all the other things. But if you make time, like you make time during the day to go and be part of other groups or to see an event and talk to other people and wave hi to someone, it helps you so much. You know, one of the biggest things that I think I hear and see about college freshmen is that they're lonely, and it's very true. Like I had friends here and I still kind of felt lonely every once in a while Just because you're figuring a lot of stuff out and you're figuring out how to be alone.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there's a way of being alone that can be good, but it's not always felt that way at first, because you know, the worst thing in high school is to sit alone at the lunch table. Right, you never had to sit at a lunch table before, but maybe you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Well, we did have lunch tables and I did sit on my own a couple of times, but homeschoolers are actually pretty good about if there's an empty table or somebody on their own they come and fill it. So it was never much of an issue. But we did have the lunch table thing. It was the lunch circle actually, because we had the floor most of the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, how funny. So, yeah, I think that's a really important thing too. And you know, one of the things I like to tell my first-year students is that we've actually done a good bit of study of the development of college students, and there are actually seven stages of development you go through in college that really are pretty clearly defined. And the first one, you think, is well, you just have to learn how to do higher-level math and higher-level English in all these different fields. But it's also the competencies of working in a library, learning how to manage the bureaucracy of a university. Those are some competencies. And then after that it's things like learning how to both separate from adults and finding your own identity, but also learning how to connect with people of your own age in healthy ways, all the way through to developing life goals, developing and thinking through your ethical beliefs and values and your identity.
Speaker 2:So there's a whole lot that goes on in college and a lot of times folks want to rush in and rush out and I always want to say slow down, freight train. There's things you've got to do that take time, and I always like it when I hear students say you know, I want to be engaged, because I think engagement is half the job of learning how to be who you want to be in college, and it really is a process that takes some time. So we'll talk about homeschooling and we'll get some homeschoolers in here and we're going to talk about engagement in the classroom. What about just in terms of doing the academic work? Have you had some surprises or are there some words of wisdom that you want to share with the folks that are coming up in the new academic year?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's been a little different for me. I guess I came in really nervous about the workload and I found that it was actually easier than some of my other classes that I'd been doing at my co-op. But again, time management and taking initiative with what you're learning so that you're thinking about it not just as well I need to put the letters on this piece of paper or I need to earn my piece of paper degree. If you're actually thinking about the content that's being presented to you, that's an opportunity. Everything is an opportunity for you to really start thinking about what it means in a broader context. If you're studying in English, if you have an English class and you don't really like the book you're reading, that's fine. Ask yourself why. And if you really like the book you're reading, that's fine. Ask yourself why. And if you really like the book you're reading, that's fine. Ask yourself why.
Speaker 2:Well, and where I was going with that too, is that a lot of public school students who've been to public high schools will say that they're not used to having to think this much. They're good at reading material and mastering and giving answers back in a sort of a level of competency or a level of comprehension, but the deeper levels of thinking and reasoning which are required in college, and which also again take more time to get to, are one of the big surprises for them. My experience, though I will say this is that those who have been homeschooled have kind of had a little more experience with that. Because there are so few in the class, I think you have more time with your teachers, because you get more attention from your teachers. That way, because there are fewer, there's an opportunity for more personal growth.
Speaker 2:You know the great Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a French writer about education and wrote a book called Emile. His ideal learning situation was for him to take a boy named Emil, as one teacher and one boy, and to train him all the way up to the time that he went off to university. And that, you know, by developing relationships with your teachers, or your one teacher or your parent teacher. I think that that gives you space to get more into the text, into the learning, because you're less worried about negotiating all these different. You know what? Do you have five or six different high school teachers, you know, and everyone's different. Everyone wants something different from you, and so there's great benefits to all these ways of going about it. Now, one thing I did want to ask you. You said you have to purchase materials to be a homeschooler. I know it's not a cheap endeavor, is it?
Speaker 3:It's really not. It is kind of costly but it's worth it. And if you meet other homeschoolers and there probably are a couple in your area if you're able to connect with those families, they will usually help you with guiding where to go for curriculum, which ones maybe are more worth the money.
Speaker 2:Are they? Is there some sort of clearinghouse, though, that the state, the Texas Education Agency, the TEA, approves? I mean, surely there has to be some sort of legal or state assessment of these?
Speaker 3:I'm sure there is Me personally. I don't know the most about it. My only exposure with it is because my sister was doing a research thing about it a couple years back.
Speaker 2:Well, your parents took it on, so maybe we should invite your parents in to tell us about it. Educate us about how homeschooling works.
Speaker 3:They would love that, but I guarantee you you'd have to be here for a little while, but they would love that.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we might just have to set that up. Huh, so a couple other things here. Have you had much experience with AI?
Speaker 3:yet I actually just now started using AI for some of my things, and it's because, okay, so I'm doing a short film project and there are coloration things that I was wanting to do but that I didn't really have the research I needed on it and my only education with like film and stuff is YouTube, and so I usually just do Google searches, and sometimes that takes a long time To find the right one. Yeah, absolutely so. I just started using ChatGPT, actually, and I would just type in the question and type in some of the specifics about the situation, because every project's a little different, and it was able to calculate, like, the amount of hours that doing this or that would add to my workflow as an editor, and on the shooting times that we had, and that helped me make a really informed decision about what kind of format we were going to shoot in. So that's really my only experience with AI that was recent, that was like this week.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to tell you that all of us in higher education are fascinated by, and a little worried about, what it's going to do, not just to higher education, but to really of everything. We recently had a speaker who explained to us that in recent studies of using AI for diagnosis of medical conditions, it found 20% more cancers, early cancers. Lawyers can use AI to analyze contracts in a few moments. That would take legal minds hours or at least an hour, and would cost money. And there are all sorts of ways that you know I, for example, I can use AI to set up a rubric for a particular kind of paper. The trick with AI is going to be well, first of all, you always have to watch it, because AI doesn't always. It makes stuff up. You know these large language models. They're always learning new things, and if it can't find an answer that you ask it, it will kind of create it out of the language out there. That sounds like it might be a good answer. That isn't one. It can't think, but it can sort. For example, I was doing an exercise the other day with my students on meter how to pronounce certain words, and I found a bunch of words in these poems and I thought, well, it'd be really good to alphabetize them, and so I just plopped the list back into ChatGPT and said, said, alphabetize these out. It came. That's fairly mindless work, having alphabetized so I think we're going to find it's going to be a great tool in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:There's several different programs we've been experimenting with. It will create very good and beautiful presentations. There's something called paper pal that I'm sure a lot of students are going to be wanting to use, which can edit papers. And of course, there's going to be always the chance that students are going to want to use an AI to do their work for them and of course that's a big waste of their time and their money if they're going to college. But we're going to be watching for that and watching how we can use it responsibly and ethically.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the things I just used it for because one of the novels I teach is old and out of copyright I was able to, you know, go to Google Books and copy the whole book and throw it into one of these programs and then instruct it to allow my students to converse with the characters in the book. For example, one of the characters is Reverend Hale and he leaves the Church of England and it's an interesting decision that motivates all the rest of the action, because the whole family has to move and my students could say well, reverend Hale, did you think about what effect your leaving the church is going to have on all your whole family? And he could answer and sometimes answers are pretty interesting, but it gives students a chance to play around with text in new ways. So I don't think anybody should be afraid of AI and I think working in the field that you're in you'll discover like you said, it already helped you figure out how to streamline your editing process and building your film. So, to come on back around, I'm just thrilled to have you as my new partner in this project.
Speaker 2:My goal has been to try to help folks in our area and anybody really who's interested in going to college to know how to get there, how to do it well and really what a wonderful experience it is, how it gives you something that no money can buy. We know it costs money, but it's also a set of experiences that is pretty much priceless. And also, most importantly, I want people to be able to use their time well, so that when they finish they say, yeah, that was a good thing that I did. So welcome to the podcast, and I'll be looking forward to hearing all the things you have to say in the next couple. How's that? Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:I'm excited.
Speaker 2:So well, that was pretty interesting. I enjoyed that. I guess that's a wrap, ashley.
Speaker 3:Yes, ma'am, this has been the Ask Dr Ross podcast. Thank you so much for listening in with us today, and if you have questions about college life or any of the topics that we were talking about today, please send us your questions to adrquestions at gmailcom. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:In the meanwhile. We'll see you in the next episode. Thank you very much. This is Ashley Wertlich signing off.
