Apply for AI Major in College Entrance Examination? Nanjing University Zhou Zhihua: Of Course! Tsinghua University Sun Maosong: Think About It Again

It’s time for the college entrance examination results to be released again, and the next step is for prospective college students to choose their majors. "Artificial Intelligence" has become an optional undergraduate major for the first time. At a time when it is in the limelight, how should we choose? Let’s take a look at the cold thinking behind the craze from the opinions of industry leaders and netizens.

It's the college entrance examination season again.College Entrance ExaminationResults are released one after another. The tens of millions of students who have gone through the college entrance examination will faceThe challenges of choosing a school and a major.

As the most trendy emerging profession, artificial intelligence is gaining popularity and has attracted a lot of attention.But in such a wave, whether the establishment of AI major is a natural outcome or just blindly following the trend remains to be considered. However, judging from the current pace of development, it seems that there is no opportunity for us to think about it.

AI major is very popular, should you consider it?

Under the AI wave, the biggest stimulus comes from the lack of talent in the market. At the same time, the high-paying jobs in the artificial intelligence industry in the market have also stimulated the cultivation of AI talents. Universities, which bear the responsibility of talent delivery, have become an important force in injecting new power. 

In 2017, the Ministry of Education issued the "Action Plan for Innovation in Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education Institutions", which also catalyzed the formal formation of this discipline. In September 2018, the earliest batch of artificial intelligence colleges began to recruit students, becoming the first to try it out, but at that time the major was not directly named "artificial intelligence."

In March this year, the Ministry of Education announced the results of undergraduate major registration and approval. 35 universitiesUndergraduate majors in artificial intelligence can be opened. In addition, many schools have put artificial intelligence on the agenda, and both undergraduate and graduate majors are showing signs of a blowout.

AI majors have become popular, but seriously speaking, it is still unclear what direction they will take. The field of artificial intelligence itself is very short of talent, so how can we respond to and solve the rapidly expanding demand for talent training?

Before, universities had already had artificial intelligence-related disciplines and courses to choose from, but they were all affiliated with computer science schools or interdisciplinary disciplines.

Would setting up artificial intelligence as a separate major or a separate department be like a speedboat riding the technological wave? 

We might as well look at this issue from multiple angles and see some opinions on the independent construction of AI discipline from different perspectives.

Agree: The discipline of artificial intelligence must develop independently!

Negative:It's not much different from studying computer science.

Neutral: Very good, very good, all is fine

At the crossroads of choosing a major, follow your heart

The ideas of the bigwigs from all sides seem to make sense regardless of their stance.

As artificial intelligence technology penetrates into all aspects of life, the urgent demand for talent is bound to grow steadily.

Discipline construction is also inseparable from the accumulated curriculum design, scientific research investment and industry cooperation. The construction of any high-quality discipline cannot be promoted by a simple trend.

Looking back at the college entrance examination over the years, the popularity of majors is a dynamic process.For example, after the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977, majors such as physics and mathematics, which are more basic subjects, were in great demand, but in recent years majors with high employment rates have been significantly more popular.

Popular disciplines emerge from time to time, but it is often difficult to predict how long they will remain popular. Factors such as the trend of the times, industry progress, and talent turnover may affect their future. After such a perfect start, the now popular artificial intelligence major may need more energy investment and construction.

For those who are in the wave, it is always difficult to see how long the wave will last.But taking a step back, choosing a major can also be more pure, just like what is said in the movie "Forever Young", "Love what you love, do what you do, listen to your heart, regardless of the east or the west."

Back to the issue of college entrance examination choices, after going through the test of this summer, if you are determined to enter the world of AI and explore the mysteries of computers and humans, will you choose artificial intelligence as a major?

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