As I write this, I'm currently enrolled in my fourth semester of graduate school. If you didn't know, I'm knee-deep in a career change from the world of technology to become a Marriage and Family Therapist (a big jump, I know). I've discussed the reasons for my career change in my previous books, but one thing I haven't talked about as much is how different graduate school is from when I was in college over 10 years ago. Well, let me rephrase that. Some things are exactly the same. For starters, the quirks of having to deal with the university system haven't changed one bit. Logging into student portals that feel like they were designed in the 1990s is the same. Dealing with the pain of spending thousands of dollars for what is essentially a piece of paper is the same. Working alongside fellow students who share your frustrations with class and help you through it is the same. All of the typical things you'd expect from higher education are basically the same as they always have been. But one part of the experience is dramatically different, and it's arguably the most important. The way learning takes place. When I was in college 10 years ago, I was dependent on all my professors to teach me. There was an expectation that you'd show up to class, learn, and apply your learning via assignments and projects. It would be the most frustrating thing in the world to end up with a professor who wasn't a good teacher (thank god for RateMyProfessor). We've all been there, trying to learn from somebody who is probably a great person outside the classroom but makes you question how they could have possibly obtained a teaching certificate. I still remember this one professor from an accounting class I was required to take. This guy was incredibly successful in his career, working with Fortune 500 companies and making a lot of money. But when it came to teaching us, he never did. We sat through class listening to him ramble about random stories and learned nothing. It goes without saying how much I hated this. If I'm paying so much money to be in your classroom, I expect to learn something from you, not a textbook. And to be totally transparent, this is kind of what I'm experiencing right now in graduate school. If I had to guess, I'd say only 20% of our class time is actual learning. The remaining 80% has been a mix of endless discussions and student presentations. I'd personally like to see these numbers flipped. I want to get as much out of my professors as possible. Instead, it feels like they rely on books that we're required to read outside of the classroom to facilitate our learning. I almost wish there were an alternative option for graduate school where you could just get a list of all the books instead of having to show up for class. Clearly, that's all they care about. What's the point of being in a classroom when all the learning is happening at home inside a textbook? Thankfully, things are different in 2026. Hope is not lost if you end up in a situation like this. I've spoken about AI extensively over the years. It's become a central part of my life in so many ways. However, one domain where AI has proven its value more than any other is in my education. I want to make it clear that relying on AI as a replacement for being in a classroom is not what I'm suggesting. But using it as a supplement and personal teacher? One hundred percent, yes. AI tools have truly democratized access to competent teaching. The student enrolled in their local community college can now learn the same way a student at Harvard does. Asking AI specific questions about the material you're studying will always be a reliable way to understand something if you aren't quite grasping it from your professor. And let's be real, it doesn't matter which university you're going to anymore. Students everywhere are using the same AI tools to deepen their understanding. I so desperately wish my school would embrace AI more strongly and actually teach students how to use it effectively. It's not just a way to cheat on writing your paper. We need to fundamentally change the way we're learning in the classroom to make better use of this new wave of technology. It's kind of like when Google first came out and schools had to shift from using indexes in big books to teaching students how to use an online database. The transition we're in right now is even bigger. I can confidently say that I've learned more about my course materials from AI than I have from my classes. That's not an insult to my professors, they're incredibly good at what they do. It is, however, an insult to the outdated curriculum and inability to proactively adapt change. Here's just one example of how this has directly impacted me. As a therapist-in-training, I need to accumulate a certain number of client contact hours in order to graduate. I work closely with various supervisors to provide the best care for my clients and ensure I always have a space to ask for help if I'm feeling stuck. My supervision classes are my favorite because we are talking about real cases with real scenarios. The stakes are higher, and everything just feels much more tangible than reading a book. To supplement my in-person supervision, I've also created an AI supervisor to help challenge me even more. I provide it with high-level (anonymized) details of a client case I'm working on and ask it specific questions about how to apply a certain modality or theory. The beauty of AI is that you can dive incredibly deep, asking an infinite number of follow-up questions. It's personalized to your style, it has the full context of all your notes, and you can ask it to clarify something as many times as you want until you actually understand it. I've asked mine to talk like Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy. After every session, I ask it for feedback based on my reflections and it has proved to be immensely valuable in my development. To be clear, I also specifically prompted AI Sue Johnson not to give me answers, but rather, provide me high-level guidance and allow me to retain all the critical thinking for myself. Contrast this with my human supervisors, who are amazing therapists, but only have a limited amount of time to work with me. Humans also don't have the ability to remember every little detail from the notes you took three months ago. AI can read through all of your notes in under a second, and point out little patterns or trends that might otherwise have been missed. Another example is using AI to assist with my readings. Look, if I actually read every book I was assigned in class, I'd have no time to do anything else. Instead, I choose to be very selective with the books I read. Everything else gets the AI summary prompt. However, even with the books I do choose to read myself, I'm still using AI to get the most out of them. Graduate school books tend to be very wordy and technical. These are my least favorite. I spend more time trying to understand the words than learning the topic being taught. Using AI to help clarify certain sections or even rewrite chapters to a fifth-grade level has been beyond useful. I do whatever it takes to ensure I actually understand what I'm reading. I feel comfortable asking AI silly "stupid" questions that I'd likely never ask my real professors. When I look ahead, I imagine the classrooms of the future will spend more time training students how to use AI in their respective fields. Schools that lack AI training integrated into their curriculum will fall behind rapidly. The students who succeed will be the ones who leverage AI to learn better, faster, and more effectively. Students are no longer limited by the competency of their professor. AI is allowing everyone to be on a level playing field, providing the ability for anyone to learn anything their heart desires. We are only at the beginning of a massive shift in our education system. The future is bright, and I can't wait to see how this access will change what it means to be "educated" or "qualified." --- Related Notes: - [[Lessons From 2026]] This note was originally created on **February 2026**.