AI Companions on Campus: Enhancing Student Life with Chatbots

Artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots have been around for years, but they’ve gained serious momentum in education in the past several years. Competing colleges and universities have started using advanced technology to create the best on and off-campus student experience possible.

So, what does it look like to have chatbots in students' lives? How do they enhance it, and what are some of the most popular applications? Let's have a look.

Academic Resources

Students who need help with studying and staying on top of all their academic materials could use the hand of a chatbot. Chatbots can help students find the right academic resources for each course, thus taking some burden off their shoulders.

The chatbots have access to information about:

• college library
• digital libraries
• online resources
• academic magazines, papers, and dissertations

Students can find additional course materials and use them to enhance their academic performance. This is especially the case for students who have a lot of academic writing to do. Naturally, there are other ways to overcome a writing crisis, like hiring an essay helper who can do the work for you.

Choosing and Registering for Courses

Choosing a course and registering for it used to be a bit of a complex task for students. They needed to go out of their way to gather all the course information, do some reading, and decide which ones to go for.

But today’s chatbots are doing all the hard work. Students are delivered the necessary information based on their degree program and other criteria. So, a chatbot will:

• provide course options
• provide information about each course
• recommend courses to the student
• show course availability
• show course schedule information
• allow students to add or delete courses

This helps the students control their courses and reduces the pressure on the college administration workers.

Campus Navigation

99% of prospective and current students think that 24/7 support from a school is important. College campus chatbots are aimed at helping all students with all types of needs and problems. Campus navigation can be a challenge in big universities, especially for new students who aren’t from around.

Thus, chatbots are used to provide support in navigating the campus in terms of:

• locating a desired destination on campus through maps and GPS
• listing the resources the campus offers
• informing students about their dining options
• learning about facilities like the gym, library, student clubs, and more
• notifying the students about upcoming campus events

Students can use it to quickly adapt to a new campus or discover things they didn’t know before.

Scholarships Information

Another great use of chatbots for students is in the process of selecting and applying for scholarships.

This is typically a time-consuming process in which a student has to do a lot of research, analyzing, notetaking, and paperwork. But, with the help of a chatbot, students can make better scholarship choices and find their fit in no time.

After the chatbot helps you decide which scholarship to apply for, it’ll also give you information like:

• the application process details
• all the necessary paperwork
• help to fill out the forms
• eligibility criteria

Some chatbots may even include reminders about deadlines and status updates for you to check.

Tutoring

Finally, some chatbots can perform as tutors for specific subjects or skills. When students feel like they don't understand their materials or need additional explanations, or better examples, they can turn to a tutor chatbot.

This gives them a chance to get all the answers instantly, reduce the stress of studying and preparing for exams, and eventually perform better.

The most advanced chatbots can provide additional resources for practicing, using personalized techniques suitable for each student. They can also generate mock tests and give students an objective insight into their knowledge.

Final Thoughts

As chatbots become a natural part of our lives, we get to be more efficient, organized, and successful in achieving our goals. Students who can use chatbots on and off campus have the advantage of using 24/7 available all-knowing academic assistants.

We've got a long way ahead of us until all colleges globally start using chatbots as students' assistants. The ones that already do provide great AI companions for their students.