In 2018, the University at Buffalo became one of the first schools in the world to establish a master’s program focused on A.I. The technology “wasn’t a big craze” at the time, Kemper Lewis, dean of the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told Observer, with the program’s enrollment seen as “slow and steady for a little while.”
The program is classified as a Master of Science in Engineering Science with a focus on A.I. and provides a foundational background in A.I. and relevant subsets like machine learning, deep learning and advanced artificial neural networks. The degree opened for enrollment in the spring of 2020 and counted five students in its inaugural semester. That number has since risen more than twentyfold, with the university counting 103 students in the program this fall. “It was a great investment now that we look back on it,” said Lewis.
A portion of this surge can be attributed to the mainstream breakthrough of A.I. following the November 2022 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, said Lewis, who noted a “decent jump” in enrollment in connection to the chatbot’s release. But the program’s more significant surges occurred in relation to local initiatives like Empire A.I., a $400 million statewide research consortium unveiled by New York Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year. The University at Buffalo is part of the new public-private research center and plans to build an A.I. supercomputing center on campus valued at $250 million. “I think there’s a lot of Google searches going on right now about A.I. degrees, Buffalo, and they’re finding our master’s program from all over the world,” said Lewis.
Interest in A.I. degrees surges nationwide
The University at Buffalo isn’t the only school embracing A.I. into its degree programs. Schools like Carnegie Mellon, Purdue University and MIT were also early adopters, while the University of Pennsylvania earlier this year made history as the first Ivy League school to offer an undergraduate degree and a subsequent master’s in A.I.
Carnegie Mellon, which established its A.I. undergraduate degree in 2018, has also seen a rise in interest. While its 2019 enrollment totaled 53, the program has reliably counted more than 100 students annually since 2021. Oregon State University’s graduate A.I. program grew from 15 students in its inaugural 2021 class to 62 last fall, and MIT’s A.I.-related undergraduate major counted 300 students this year compared to just 37 in 2022. A.I.-related undergraduate and master’s degree conferrals have risen by 120 percent since 2011, according to a 2023 report from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, while A.I.-related Ph.D. conferrals have increased by 33 percent during that time.
At the University at Buffalo, the school’s A.I. degree takes between 12 to 18 months to complete and has sent off alumni to companies like Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon Web Services and Salesforce. The school is in the process of bolstering the program through initiatives like Advancing Top 25: Faculty Hiring, which has helped add more than 200 faculty members researching A.I. Such research is needed as the program’s subject matter continues to shift, according to Lewis. “We’re constantly working on improving the degree and making sure it continues to be relevant,” he said.
Lewis added that its efforts are starting to pay off as people grasp the relevance of A.I. and begin perceiving it as a valuable sector in higher education. “I think students around the world are starting to realize, okay, this is here to stay,” he said.
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