Artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is getting a lot of attention. In talking with employers, the need for college graduates to have AI skills is thrown around a lot. What’s less clear is what is meant by AI skills.
Too often, AI skills are interpreted as technical skills. For some jobs that might be accurate, but for others it may not apply. For most jobs, the definition of AI skills will be highly varied. The AI skills for a social worker, marketer, engineer, or meteorologist will all be different.
However, the one skill where there does seem to be consensus on is critical thinking. Thankfully, critical thinking is at the core of your college education. As one of the university’s Essential Learning Outcomes, you cannot graduate from UMass Lowell without developing your competency in critical thinking, no matter your major.
Personally, I feel there is never enough development of this skill. It is THAT important where you should constantly stretch yourself to learn and develop your critical thinking.
Now, what exactly is critical thinking? Critical thinking is the ability to “identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information. It is where you display situational awareness, gather and analyze data, and make effective and fair decisions.” (NACE Career Competencies, 2024)
Don’t believe me? Our own Associate Vice Chancellor of Information Technology and CIO, Steve Athanas, has called critical thinking THE vocational skill.
As you think about next semester’s courses, you may want to up your AI game, by taking some critical thinking courses. You can find critical thinking courses by using the Core Curriculum Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) filter for “Critical Thinking & Problem Solving”.
Since situational context is such an important part of critical thinking, you may want to consider courses outside of your major. By placing yourself in a new environment, you can better understand different contexts. By broadening your educational experience through diverse courses, you can adopt new approaches to critical thinking that will ultimately be valuable and increase your marketability to future employers and enhance how you can use technology, like AI, beyond specific technical skills or basic prompts.
And after you build upon your critical thinking skills, come talk with us about how to tell your critical thinking story to employers.
Want more AI learning?
UML offers courses across disciplines that relate to AI, and more are on the way. Try using keywords, like “artificial intelligence”, in the fall 2026 course schedule.
You can also access microlearning, like the state’s new agreement with Google (Grow with Google | Massachusetts AI Hub) or the digital short courses AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations and AI Fluency for students by Anthropic.
