Tech is a necessity for all college students today. You simply need certain things to get your schoolwork done, key among those devices being a solid laptop for college. But there are other gadgets that can help you out, too, both by making your academic life easier and help you unwind at the end of a long week of classes. Before you head to campus, you can pick up a few key devices to keep yourself more organized and help you produce better work for the entire year. We've collected some of the must-have gadgets for college that we've tested here, and we wouldn't be surprised if all of them stuck with you long after your four-year university run is over.
Best tech for college students
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/12-must-have-gadgets-for-college-students-in-2025-120044577.html?src=rss
Finding a laptop that can juggle both gaming and schoolwork isn’t as tricky as it used to be. These days, you don’t have to choose between a machine that can handle your homework and one that can keep up with your favorite games. Whether you’re diving into an essay, editing video for a project or hopping into a round of Fortnite or Baldur’s Gate 3 after class, there are plenty of laptops that strike the right balance between performance, portability and price.
The key is knowing what to look for. A solid schoolwork and gaming laptop should have enough processing power for multitasking, a GPU that can handle modern games (even if you're not cranking settings to ultra) and decent battery life to get you through a day of classes or study sessions. Some are sleek and lightweight enough to slip into a backpack while others double as full-on gaming rigs when you’re home and plugged in. We’ve tested a range of laptops to help you find one that fits your student schedule and your Steam library.
Best laptops for gaming and school in 2025
Best laptop for gaming and schoolwork FAQs
Are gaming laptops good for school?
As we’ve mentioned, gaming laptops are especially helpful if you're doing any demanding work. Their big promise is powerful graphics performance, which isn't just limited to PC gaming. Video editing and 3D rendering programs can also tap into their GPUs to handle laborious tasks. While you can find decent GPUs on some productivity machines, like Dell's XPS 15, you can sometimes find better deals on gaming laptops. My general advice for any new workhorse: Pay attention to the specs; get at least 16GB of RAM and the largest solid state drive you can find (ideally 1TB or more). Those components are both typically hard to upgrade down the line, so it’s worth investing what you can up front to get the most out of your PC gaming experience long term. Also, don’t forget the basics like a webcam, which will likely be necessary for the schoolwork portion of your activities.
The one big downside to choosing a gaming notebook is portability. For the most part, we'd recommend 15-inch models to get the best balance of size and price. Those typically weigh in around 4.5 pounds, which is significantly more than a three-pound ultraportable. Today's gaming notebooks are still far lighter than older models, though, so at least you won't be lugging around a 10-pound brick. If you’re looking for something lighter, there are plenty of 14-inch options these days. And if you're not into LED lights and other gamer-centric bling, keep an eye out for more understated models that still feature essentials like a webcam (or make sure you know how to turn those lights off).
Do gaming laptops last longer than standard laptops?
Not necessarily — it really depends on how you define "last longer." In terms of raw performance, gaming laptops tend to pack more powerful components than standard laptops, which means they can stay relevant for longer when it comes to handling demanding software or modern games. That makes them a solid choice if you need a system that won’t feel outdated in a couple of years, especially for students or creators who also game in their downtime.
But there’s a trade-off. All that power generates heat, and gaming laptops often run hotter and put more strain on internal components than typical ultraportables. If they’re not properly cooled or regularly maintained (think dust buildup and thermal paste), that wear and tear can shorten their lifespan. They’re also usually bulkier and have shorter battery life, which can impact long-term usability depending on your daily needs.
Gaming laptops can last longer performance-wise, but only if you take good care of them. If your needs are light — browsing, writing papers and streaming — a standard laptop may actually last longer simply because it’s under less stress day-to-day.
What is the role of GPU in a computer for gaming and school?
The GPU plays a big role in how your laptop handles visuals — and it’s especially important if you’re using your computer for both gaming and school.
For gaming, the GPU is essential. It’s responsible for rendering graphics, textures, lighting and all the visual effects that make your favorite titles look smooth and realistic. A more powerful GPU means better frame rates, higher resolutions and the ability to play modern games without lag or stuttering.
For schoolwork, the GPU matters too — but its importance depends on what you're doing. If your school tasks mostly involve writing papers, browsing the web or using productivity tools like Google Docs or Microsoft Office, you don’t need a high-end GPU. But if you’re working with graphic design, video editing, 3D modeling or anything else that’s visually demanding, a good GPU can speed things up significantly and improve your workflow.
Georgie Peru contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-laptops-for-gaming-and-school-132207352.html?src=rss
Palantir CEO Alex Karp may have three degrees to his name—but he’s fed up with higher education. The billionaire took a shot at elite universities, including Harvard and Yale, during his AI firm’s earnings call on Monday, saying degrees don’t matter once you land at Palantir: “This is by far the best credential in tech. If you come to Palantir, your career is set.”
With Gen Z facing an uphill battle in today’s job market, and many facing mounds of student loan debt, a growing number of young people have conceded that pursuing a degree may have been a worthless endeavor—and some business leaders are agreeing.
In fact, top employers today aren’t “even talking about degrees” anymore, the Great Place to Work CEO Michael Bush, previously told Fortune. “They’re talking about skills.”
Now Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, is the latest exec to publicly question the value of traditional schooling.
“If you did not go to school, or you went to a school that’s not that great, or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Palantir, you’re a Palantirian—no one cares about the other stuff,” Karp said during Monday’s earnings call.
The 57-year-old added that his company is building a new credential “separate from class or background.”
“This is by far the best credential in tech. If you come to Palantir, your career is set,” he said.
Palantir’s hot streak is thanks to workers who want to ‘bend the arc of history’
Palantir pulled in a record $1 billion in revenue last quarter, or 48% year-over-year. The AI analytics company’s stock is now up nearly 600% over the past year, with its market cap rising $12 billion yesterday alone. As of publication, its market cap was around $430 billion.
And according to Karp, the secret to their rise hasn’t been luring workers with a bougie headquarters or scooping up Ivy League talent—it’s bringing together a workforce that isn’t prideful of their fancy college degree, or lack thereof.
It’s a feeling echoed by Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer who just recently joined the billionaires club thanks to the recent increase in company value.
“We are able to attract and retain and motivate people who actually want to bend the arc of history here, work on the problems that drive outcomes,” Sankar said on the earnings call.
Palantir’s disdain for existing methods of education and talent development goes beyond just talk. Karp and fellow Palantir cofounders Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale have been supporters of the University of Austin, a new four-year school that prides itself on being centered around free speech and being “anti-woke.”
Fortune reached out to Palantir for comment.
Palantir wants to attract young talent—but also cut its workforce
Palantir is currently hiring for dozens of roles across the company, including in product development and U.S. government roles—alongside multiple positions specifically for interns and new graduates.
This past spring, the company also notably established the Meritocracy Fellowship, a four-month, paid internship for high school graduates who may be having second thoughts about higher education. Program admission is solely based on “merit and academic excellence,” but applicants still need Ivy League-level test scores to qualify. This includes at least a 1460 on the SAT or a 33 on the ACT, which are both above their respective 98th percentiles.
According to Karp, the internship was created in direct response to the “shortcomings of university admissions.”
“Opaque admissions standards at many American universities have displaced meritocracy and excellence,” the Palantir posting said. “As a result, qualified students are being denied an education based on subjective and shallow criteria. Absent meritocracy, campuses have become breeding grounds for extremism and chaos.”
“Everything you learned at your school and college about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,” Karp added to CNBC in February.
Successful interns will be interviewed for full-time roles. “Skip the debt,” the posting read. “Skip the indoctrination. Get the Palantir Degree.”
However, this young talent may be hired just to build programs that will eventually lead to their replacement by AI. Karp admitted this week that he hopes to reduce his workforce by 500 employees.
“We’re planning to grow our revenue … while decreasing our number of people,” Karp told CNBC this week. “This is a crazy, efficient revolution. The goal is to get 10x revenue and have 3,600 people. We have now 4,100.”
Google is updating Gemini to make it a better education tool with a new feature called Guided Learning. Like similar learning-focused updates to ChatGPT and Claude, Guided Learning tries to promote understanding by breaking down problems into step-by-step instructions, follow-up questions and interactive examples, rather than simply providing an answer.
Guided Learning will be available as toggle in the prompt box of Gemini as the feature rolls out. When it's toggled on, Gemini will treat questions as more of a conversation, testing your knowledge, explaining concepts and even generating visual aids, Google says. The feature is powered by Google's LearnLM, a collection of models "fine-tuned for learning and grounded in educational research."
Google
On top of Guided Learning, Google is also offering a free year of its AI Pro plan for college students in the US, Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Brazil. Google technically announced this promotion back in April for its Google One AI Premium plan, but given the pace of AI and the never-ending complexity of Google's branding, Google One AI Premium is now called Google AI Pro. The subscription unlocks access to Gemini across Google Workspace apps, increases the amount of files you can upload to NotebookLM and Gemini 2.5 Pro and includes 2TB of storage. The subscription normally costs $200 per year, so the savings are meaningful, even for just the storage.
Google has made deep inroads into education with Chromebooks and Google Workspace, so it makes sense that it would try and leverage that good will to create multiple generations of AI-dependent users. Besides the new feature and promotion, the company says it's also investing "$1 billion in funding over three years for American education" to cover things like research, cloud computing resources and AI literacy courses. The goal here is clear: Google's funding will help non-profit universities trying to adapt to student bodies already deeply invested in AI, and it could also act as marketing for anyone who isn't already bought in.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/geminis-new-guided-learning-mode-can-quiz-students-and-create-interactive-study-aids-181743349.html?src=rss
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn said the company has been playing it safe online after his post on mandatory AI usage received harsh social media backlash. The post outlined how Duolingo was going to mandate AI usage and use it as an indicator for hiring and performance review decisions.
"The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive," von Ahn said on the company's earnings call on Thursday. He added: "We still are not posting the extremely edgy things that are more likely to go viral."
The Duolingo CEO said that "stopping edgy posts" helped turn social media sentiment positive. Buthe said the move may also have hurt the company's daily active users in the quarter that ended in June.
Before the quarter, the company predicted 40% to 45% year-on-year growth in daily active users, an important metric for consumer tech companies. Von Ahn said Duolingo reported 40% growth — at the lower end of the range — because of the controlled social media engagement.
"The effect of that was essentially all in the United States, including Canada and stuff like that," he said. "This impact is in the past."
In an April memo to employees shared on LinkedIn, von Ahn outlined his plan to make the company "AI-first." He wrote that AI fluency would determine who is hired and promoted at the company, and that Duolingo would stop hiring contractors for the work AI can handle. Von Ahn added that the AI push won't replace full-time employees with the technology.
"We can't wait until the technology is 100% perfect," the CEO wrote in the memo. "We'd rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment."
But the memo received an unforgiving fallout: Users posted concerns on X, TikTok, and Reddit that the company would let AI take jobs and that AI slop would spam their favorite language learning app. Duolingo, which has cultivated a big social presence, wiped its social accounts for a period.
"What I've learned as a leader is just don't post on LinkedIn. I'm kidding," von Ahn said on Wednesday. "What people understood from my message, which is not the intention, is that we just wanted to fire all our employees, which is not what we did and not what we want to do."
He added that Duo's signature posts will be coming back soon.
"We have recovered sentiment, but we are not taking as many risks because honestly, we're skittish about it," von Ahn said on Wednesday. "Over the next few weeks, I don't know exactly how many weeks, weeks slash months, we're going to be recovering or posting more edgy things that are more likely to go viral."
For the second quarter, Duolingo reported a 41% revenue growth to $252.3 million and a record profitability of $44.8 million, growing 84% year over year.
Duolingo's stock jumped nearly 19% after hours on Wednesday. Shares are up 113% in the past year on continued user growth and AI implementation.
Just like earlier generations, Gen Z is deeply reluctant to discuss money, often ranking conversations about debt or salaries as more uncomfortable than seemingly more controversial topics, such as sex or politics. At the same time, they’re also the least financially literate generation on record.
That disconnect leaves many students unprepared to manage their finances in the real world, just as the stakes are getting higher. Financial education should be embedded into the student experience as a core element of postgraduate readiness. The knowledge gap is evident in the everyday decisions students and recent graduates make.
As the mother of three recent college graduates, I’ve seen firsthand how even academically successful students can feel overwhelmed when confronted with the complexities of the real world.
While I often emphasized the importance of early investing—especially taking advantage of employer-matched retirement contributions—my daughter still needed a primer on how to make sense of the dozens of options available to her once she entered the workforce.
It’s not that she didn’t understand the numbers; she graduated with a math degree. It’s that she had never been taught how to apply that knowledge through a financial planning lens. While many states are now embedding financial education into K–12 schooling, the realities confronting a 17-year-old differ vastly from those facing a 22-year-old navigating healthcare deductibles, credit scores, and 401(k) matches.
Gen Z’s cloud of uncertainty
As students across the country graduated last month, many did so under a cloud of uncertainty. According to recent data from Handshake, more than half of the Class of 2025 say they feel pessimistic about starting their careers.
Like the classes of 2008 and 2020 before them, this year’s graduates are entering a turbulent labor market. Generative AI is transforming entire industries, hiring freezes are spreading across sectors, and many entry-level roles are being automated or redefined.
But the anxiety doesn’t end with job prospects. Student loan payments have resumed, credit card debt is climbing, and prices for basic necessities continue to soar. Not only do colleges need to double down on career services, but they also need to prepare students for the financial pressures that await them after graduation.
In addition to teaching students how to interview and network, they also need meaningful, hands-on experience that connects their education to the world of work, as well as practical personal finance skills to match. Students should leave college not just ready to earn a good salary, but equipped to manage it wisely, build long-term stability, and make informed decisions about their future.
Recent data from Jobs for the Future, Walton Family Foundation, and Gallup underscores the extent of this unpreparedness. Gen Z students and their parents report knowing relatively little about even the most common life and career pathways. Approximately 40 percent of parents report knowing little to nothing about the types of jobs that are most in demand and the associated pay and benefits.Young people, meanwhile, reported knowing even less than their parents.
Students and their families are unsure which careers are in demand and what those jobs pay. In that case, it’s no surprise that they’re equally, if not more, uncertain about managing the financial consequences that follow.
What colleges can do about it
That’s why colleges should begin treating career readiness and financial confidence as two sides of the same coin. Strengthening one without the other leaves students unbalanced at the exact moment they’re expected to stand on their own.
One example is Intuit’s Hour of Finance, an initiative designed to help bridge this gap. Throughout an hour-long immersive simulation, college students assume the role of an individual navigating real-world financial decisions, balancing income, expenses, savings, debt, and long-term goals. (Disclosure: my organization, Education at Work, separately partners with Intuit to put college students into part-time roles within Intuit’s TurboTax business.)
It’s not a lecture or a worksheet, but an interactive learning experience that reflects the complexity and trade-offs graduates will soon face. The goal is to teach students how to budget while also building confidence in making financial choices that align with their aspirations.
Colleges could take a similar track by designing short-form courses or embedded modules that simulate post-graduation financial life. They should be tightly integrated into existing majors or senior-year programs. For students who work as Tax Specialists for Intuit at Education at Work, their training educates them to assist individuals with preparing their tax returns. The benefits are numerous. They are earning wages, gaining resume worth work experience, receiving tuition assistance, and learning the difference between a tax credit and a deduction.
Graduates today face challenges that demand more than a diploma. They need clarity, confidence, and competence—both in the workplace and their wallets. Colleges can no longer treat teaching students about money management as an elective or assume students will figure it out along the way. A generation of learners is entering adulthood amid intense economic, technological, and social flux. They need an education that prepares them for all of it.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Study Mode isn't a new ChatGPT model but a series of "custom system instructions" written for the LLM "in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts to reflect a core set of behaviors that support deeper learning," OpenAI said. Instead of the usual summary of a subject that stock ChatGPT might give—which one OpenAI employee likened to "a mini textbook chapter"—Study Mode slowly rolls out new information in a "scaffolded" structure. The mode is designed to ask "guiding questions" in the Socratic style and to pause for periodic "knowledge checks" and personalized feedback to make sure the user understands before moving on.
It's unknown how many students will use this guided learning tool instead of just asking ChatGPT to generate answers from the start.
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Study Mode, transforming AI from an answer engine into a Socratic tutor that guides students through problems step-by-step rather than providing direct solutions.Read More
My daughter starts school in a few weeks. I'm not ready for this part of her life to start.
Courtesy of Alexandra Meyer.
My 4-year-old daughter will start primary school in September. She's excited, but I'm dreading it.
It seems like moments ago that I brought home a baby from hospital, now she's growing up so fast.
I feel like this is the beginning of the rest of her life and I'm not ready for the change.
'I will need a laptop when I start school,' my 4-year-old daughter confidently informed me.
She is due to start school in September and will be going to the lovely, tiny village school that is minutes away from our house in the UK.
I knew she'd need a pencil case and school shoes, but I really wasn't expecting her to need a laptop.
When I tried to reason with her, and point out it was unlikely the school would ask 4-year-olds to have their own computer, she answered, 'It's for my homework.'
That was that. She'd heard so much about 'big' school from older relatives, that she was convinced she knew what she was getting herself in to, despite me trying to tell her I thought it was unlikely the youngest classes were given homework.
Looking at her face, full of excitement, with messy hair and remnants of nursery school detritus on it, my heart broke slightly as I imagined what the next few weeks, months, and years would look like.
Things are changing
While my daughter sees school as her biggest adventure so far, I see it as the start of the rest of her life. And with it comes the inevitable highs and lows of growing up.
Along the way she's going to experience the joy of close friendships, the pain of friendship break-ups, the excitement of a school trip and, yes, the slog of homework.
After primary school, there'll be secondary school, maybe university, and a career to follow.
There'll be Sunday evening battles over getting bags ready for the school week, carefully planned camps to tide over the long summer break, and playdates with people who, I hope, will become some of our closest friends but who we haven't even met yet.
She is ready, I'm not
She still feels so small, but is also so determined to grow up in a hurry. She can't wait to be at school and keeps gleefully reminding her younger brother that she won't be at nursery school with him this year.
She says, "I am going to school and you are not, because you are only a baby."
Her indignant younger brother, replies, "Not a baby."
She is ready to leave him behind and move on, to a place where she's going to be the smallest fish in a large pond.
My heart is aching
I don't know when the novelty and excitement will wear off, but when it does I can't think of a way to sugarcoat the pill that this is her life for years to come.
But I also know that along the way I will have the privilege to witness her grow into a wonderful human being- shaped by everything life throws at her, beginning in the next few weeks and continuing for years.
Imagining my tiny girl in a uniform slightly too big for her, holding my hand nervously in the playground on her first day, my heart contracts.
I know that she is more than ready for this step, and as a parent, I have to let her fly and just be there to catch her when or if she falls. However, I will not be, under any circumstances, buying her a laptop.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, talking recently in Washington.
Reuters/Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA
OpenAI partners with Instructure to integrate AI into classroom instruction.
Instructure's Canvas app will use AI to enhance teaching and student engagement.
AI tools will assist in creating assignments, assessing students, and managing admin tasks.
When ChatGPT took the world by storm in 2023, students frequently used the AI chatbot to cheat on homework assignments. Two years later, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is taking a more official role in education.
On Wednesday, OpenAI and edtech company Instructure announced a partnership that brings generative AI into the heart of classroom instruction.
Instructure is the company behind Canvas, a learning app that's used by thousands of high schools and many colleges. If you're a parent, like me, you've probably seen your kids checking for homework assignments and grades in this app on their phones.
Going forward, AI models will be embedded within Canvas to help teachers create new types of classes, assess student performance in new ways, and take some of the drudgery out of administrative tasks.
For students, this provides a way to use AI for school work without worrying about being accused of cheating, according to Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure.
"Students actually do want to learn something, but they want it to be meaningful and applicable to their lives," she added in an interview. "What this does is it allows them to use AI in a class in an interesting way to help them be more engaged and learn more."
The edtech market is crowded, and many players are integrating generative AI into workflows. Last year, Khan Academy, a pioneering online education provider, launched Khanmingo, an AI powered assistant for teachers and students that uses OpenAI technology.
The LLM-enabled assignment
At the center of the Canvas transformation is a new kind of assignment. Instructure calls it the LLM-Enabled Assignment. This tool allows educators to design interactive, chat-based experiences inside Canvas using OpenAI's large language models, or LLMs.
Teachers can describe their targeted learning goals and desired skills in plain language, and the platform will help craft an intelligent conversation tailored to each student's needs.
"With Instructure's global reach with OpenAI's advanced AI models, we'll give educators a tool to deliver richer, more personalized, and more connected learning experiences for students, and also help them reclaim time for the human side of teaching," said Leah Belsky, VP of Education at OpenAI.
Instructure and OpenAI are aiming for a learning experience that better fits how students interact with technology these days — one that mirrors conversations with ChatGPT, but grounded in academic rigor.
For instance, a teacher could conjure up an AI chatbot in the form of John Maynard Keynes, powered by OpenAI GPT models. Students can chat with this AI economics avatar and ask questions such as what might happen if more supply is added to a particular market.
AI in student assessment
As students work through these AI-powered experiences and prompts, their conversations are compared with the teacher's defined objectives and funneled back into the Gradebook, offering real-time insights into student understanding. This gives educators more insight to evaluate the learning process, rather than just students' final answers.
In Canvas, the Gradebook is a centralized tool that helps instructors track, manage, and assess student performance across assignments, quizzes, discussions, and other activities within a course.
Having OpenAI models involved in the assessment process may raise eyebrows among some educators and parents. However, there will always be a human in the loop, and teachers will have full control over assessments and grades, according to Loble.
Help with scheduling and parent questions
Instructure has also developed an AI agent that helps teachers tackle heavy admin tasks in Canvas. For instance, if Porsche broke her ankle riding her horse and she asks for more time to do homework, her teacher can ask the digital agent to go into the app and bump deadlines for Porsche and all her relevant classes.
This AI agent can even help teachers respond to parent questions. Why did Porsche get a B on her economics test? Her parents might want to know at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. The Canvas agent can summarize parent questions like these for teachers, potentially spotting similarities and trends within the messages. The teacher can then ask the agent to write a response to the relevant parents.
Again, a human is always in the loop: In this case, the teacher would check the agent's message and edit or re-write it before sending.
Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected].
OpenAI has achieved "gold medal-level performance" at the International Math Olympiad, notching another important milestone for AI's fast-paced growth. Alexander Wei, a research scientist at OpenAI working on LLMs and reasoning, posted on X that an experimental research model delivered on this "longstanding grand challenge in AI."
According to Wei, an unreleased model from OpenAI was able to solve five out of six problems at one of the world's longest-standing and prestigious math competitions, earning 35 out of 42 points total. The International Math Olympiad (IMO) sees countries send up to six students to solve extremely difficult algebra and pre-calculus problems. These exercises are seemingly simple but usually require some creativity to score the highest marks on each problem. For this year's competition, only 67 of the 630 total contestants received gold medals, or roughly 10 percent.
AI is often tasked with tackling complex datasets and repetitive actions, but it usually falls short when it comes to solving problems that require more creativity or complex decision-making. However, with the latest IMO competition, OpenAI says its model was able to handle complicated math problems with human-like reasoning.
"By doing so, we've obtained a model that can craft intricate, watertight arguments at the level of human mathematicians," Wei wrote on X. Wei and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, both added that the company doesn't expect to release anything with this level of math capability for several months. That means the upcoming GPT-5 will likely be an improvement from its predecessor, but it won't feature that same impressive capability to compete in the IMO.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-experimental-model-achieved-gold-at-the-international-math-olympiad-182719801.html?src=rss
The author decided to join a startup that folded quickly.
uchar/Getty Images
I was accepted into a Ph.D. in economics program, which was a dream come true.
But I was also offered a job at a startup that excited me, so I took the offer.
The startup folded, and I'm unsure if I regretted the decision.
When I received an email saying I had been accepted into the university of my choice for a Ph.D. program, I cried.
Furthering my education had always been an important goal for me, but it was one I didn't achieve easily. I battled Graves' disease through my early college years, which meant I was in and out of the classroom. I constantly played catch-up, and never thought I'd graduate. Understandably, the thought of enrolling in a Ph.D. economics program was a dream come true.
I'm a forward thinker, so I started imagining my interactions with my professors and what kind of thesis I'd work on. Although the annual tuition fees would put a great dent in my pocket, I was determined to work for it. I would have to strike a balance between school, family, and side hustles.
But then I got an offer I couldn't refuse.
My friend was working on an intriguing startup idea
While I was still planning for my program that was meant to begin in early fall, I met a friend who talked to me about a startup company he started and was taking off faster than he could keep up. It was exhilarating, and he thought I'd benefit from the experience.
The company wanted to disrupt financial access in underserved economies, and it was doing everything from product development and data modeling to pitching investors.
This friend had always been a dreamer and succeeded in most things he put his mind to. As he assured me, the startup wouldn't be an exception, especially because he had channeled all his savings toward it.
However, he wanted to bring me on board because I had an analytical background in economics. To be honest, the pay he suggested wasn't great, but the opportunity was stellar with potential for growth in skills and finances. My role would involve leveraging my skills in data analysis and understanding market dynamics.
He suggested I take some time to think about it.
I decided to take the job offer
I went back home and spent the majority of my time online looking through the company pages and comparing them to others that were thriving in the same field. It looked promising, and I wanted to be part of something great.
However, the team required someone who would work in the office full time, and logically, I wouldn't be able to be present for classes and work at the same time.
After a lot of back and forth, I thought working for the company was a one-time opportunity, and I was leaning toward it.
I looked up deferral programs and decided to consult with my school to seek their opinion on deferring my course for a year or two and then rejoining. The department didn't have deferrals, and the dean advised against it.
But the faculty told me that I could reapply a year later. I thought, if I was accepted once, I could be accepted again, so I started working for the startup.
The job didn't pan out as I expected
Everything was great in the first half of my work year. We embraced a team spirit, brought a few clients on board, and were on a steady path to growth. However, somewhere in the middle, we lost the plot.
We struggled to fit some of the company's products into a market that wasn't ready, and, most importantly, we faced a severe lack of funding.
After a long time of trying everything we could, the startup folded.
Looking back on my decision
I had mixed feelings about turning down school. In some ways, I feel like a failure. I was depressed and sunk deep into hopelessness. I haven't reapplied to my Ph.D. program yet, and I'm not sure I will anytime soon.
In hindsight, walking away from an opportunity to further my studies so I could join a startup was a risk, but it was also a rewarding experience in itself. I gained immense experience and made connections I wouldn't have made in academia.
I learned what it means to build something from the ground up, even if it doesn't work out.
Your college years are typically thought of as some of the best of your life, but they can be hard to enjoy to the fullest if you're worried about paying for the essentials like food, textbooks, supplies and, if you're lucky, the occasional evening out with friends. With everything going up in price, it may seem like good discounts are few and far between, but that's not the case. Students still have excellent discounts to take advantage of across the board, be it on streaming services, shopping subscriptions, digital tools and more. We’ve collected the best student discounts we could find on useful services, along with some things you’ll enjoy in your down time. Just keep in mind that most of these offers require you to prove your status as a student either by signing up with your .edu email address or providing a valid student ID.
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You shouldn’t rely on social media to be your sole source of news. With foreign wars, new viruses, Supreme Court decisions and upcoming elections making headlines daily, it’s important to get your news from reliable sources. Yes, it’s daunting to get into the news on a regular basis, but it’s crucial to know what’s going on in the country and the world as a whole. Here are some reputable news organizations that offer student discounts on their monthly or annual subscription plans.
The Atlantic: Starts at $50 per year for digital-only access.
Whether you’re sharing a room with a couple other students or you’ve managed to score a single room by yourself, you’ll appreciate your dorm room more if you add a few personal touches to it. For this guide, Engadget reporters and editors share some of the gear that served us well back in college, or the stuff we wish we had. A lot of it is tech-related (we are who we are) but there are some lo-fi things here as well — and all of it will help you feel more at home in your tiny home away from home.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-dorm-room-essentials-for-college-students-133806068.html?src=rss
The author (not pictured) is a teacher who often uses ChatGPT.
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I'm a teacher who started experimenting with ChatGPT.
AI helps me create study guides, bar graphs, and quizzes.
The technology will never eliminate all of my duties, but it's made me a more efficient teacher.
I was anxious the first time I dabbled in ChatGPT. That's probably an understatement. I actually feared that someone was watching over me, lurking in cyberspace, waiting to sound alarm bells when I typed a certain phrase or combination of words into the blank search bar.
I'm a journalist and journalism educator. I teach kids about sourcing and how to avoid plagiarizing material. In my media ethics class, I ask them to sign a contract saying they won't use other people's material.
So what the heck was I doing playing with AI? And what if I actually liked it?
Spoiler alert: I did, and it's kind of awesome.
ChatGPT has become helpful for me
Teachers have focused so much on how our students might use AI to cheat that we may have forgotten how it can help us in the classroom and at home.
I'm using AI (specifically ChatGPT) in practical, everyday ways.
I recently completed a 16-week intensive ELA and math tutoring program in our local school district. The material I was given for the program didn't work well for my kids, so I ran it through ChatGPT to make it more digestible.
With AI, I can customize my lessons — quickly. Tens and ones review? No problem. Bar graph with ice cream flavors? Done. First grade fractions? Been there, done that, too. I've even started playing around with Bingo designs for fun.
I'm also using AI to play teacher at home. When my 6th grader needs to review states of matter or the history of ancient China, we turn to AI together. ChatGPT whips up multiple-choice quizzes (with answer keys) faster than I can make dinner. The same thing goes for studying India's monsoon season. Once, I even asked AI to create a quiz on how to spot fake news.
I recently looked back on my ChatGPT history and realized how much I had used AI to generate study guides, like the one I made for "The Outsiders," by S.E. Hinton. My son got an A on that quiz.
I don't think AI will ever replace me
As much as I've come to rely on AI, I've learned that it isn't going to solve all my classroom conundrums.
For example, it won't comfort a crying student because he or she did poorly on a test and fears her parents will ground her. AI isn't going to help me decide when a student is sick enough to visit the school nurse. It's not going to help me figure out why a student understands one concept of math but can't grasp another.
But given all the complexities and challenges of being an educator right now, I'll take the help, even if it means double-checking all of the facts.
I'm leaning into AI, but cautiously
I still feel a little guilty when I ask AI to check a sentence's grammar or to eliminate redundancies in my writing. I'm not sure if it's because I asked for help or because the work is often great.
Still, ChatGPT has made me more efficient as a teacher. I can easily whip up study guides that benefit my students and tailor lesson plans to them. All of this frees up time for me to connect with my students more easily and focus on other tasks.
I'm glad I took a leap of faith, and I plan on exploring AI as it continues to grow.
Mid-career college graduates with one of 19 majors typically earn at least $100,000 a year, per a New York Fed analysis.
Josh Reynolds/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
The New York Fed analyzed the mid-career wages of college graduates with a bachelor's degree.
Graduates aged 35 to 45 in 19 areas of study had a median wage of at least $100,000 a year.
Ten of those 19 college majors were related to engineering.
When undergraduate college students choose their majors, there can be several factors that go into their decisions.
But if maximizing one's future earnings is high on their priority list, some areas of study have a better track record than others.
A New York Fed analysis of 2023 American Community Survey data found that college graduates who majored in one of 19 areas of study had a median mid-career wage of at least $100,000 a year. The New York Fed defined mid-career as people between the ages of 35 and 45. The analysis of 73 majors and groups of study only included people with a bachelor's degree — no additional graduate school education — and used what's noted as people's first major.
One general area of study accounted for 10 of the 19 spots: engineering.
Aerospace engineering majors had the top median mid-career wage of $125,000, per the analysis. Three other engineering fields followed behind — computer, chemical, and electrical.
Jaison Abel, the head of microeconomics at the New York Fed, told Business Insider that engineering is a great example of the type of college major that has the quantitative skills businesses tend to want.
"There is a bit of a premium on the demand side, and also these are relatively challenging majors to get through," Abel said. "When you've got quite a bit of demand for the skills and not as much supply of the types of people who are coming in, that's going to make wages overall go up and be high."
Computer science, economics, and finance were the three non-engineering majors with the highest mid-career median wages. Across all the majors analyzed, the median mid-career wage was $83,000 a year.
While the prospect of high mid-career earnings is likely attractive to many students, this appeal hinges on actually landing a job in their field of study — a feat that has become increasingly difficult for some college graduates.
A New York Fed analysis of unemployment data showed 5.8% of recent college graduates in the labor force between the ages of 22 and 27 were unemployed in March, up from 3.9% in October 2022. Absent the pandemic-related spike and its recovery over the next year, that's the highest rate since 2013.
Student loans and the cost of college may affect how a degree is valued
As college tuition rates have risen in recent decades, many Americans have taken on a considerable amount of student debt. In 2024 dollars, the average price for tuition and fees at private nonprofit, four-year schools has increased 30% from the 2004-05 academic year to $43,350 for the 2024-25 academic year. Public, four-year in-state schools are much cheaper, but their average cost has also climbed during that timeframe. Housing and food expenses make the cost of school even higher.
The average American consumer with student loans had a debt balance of about $35,000 as of the third quarter of last year, per Experian data. That's a decline from the average in the third quarter of 2023.
Not all job openings require someone to have a particular level of education. However, sometimes a college degree is preferred for a job seeker. Automaker Stellantis said in a previous statement that "most non-bargaining unit positions (salaried) require an associate's or bachelor's degree," but also noted that "for some positions, a degree might be a preferred qualification which would open those up to people who can demonstrate proficiency in other ways."
College graduates who majored in early childhood education had the lowest median mid-career wage, at $49,000 a year. Other types of education majors had relatively low mid-career median wages, such as secondary education.
As millions of young people worldwide increasingly rely on AI chatbots to acquire knowledge as part of their learning — and even complete assignments for them — one organization is concerned that those in developing countries without access to the tech could be put at an unfair disadvantage.
And it's using the very technology it believes is causing this problem to fix it.
Education Above All, a nonprofit based in Qatar, believes that because most of the world's popular AI chatbots are created in Silicon Valley, they aren't equipped to understand the linguistic and ethnic nuances of non-English-speaking countries, creating education inequities on a global scale. But its team sees AI as a way to tackle this problem.
In January 2025, the charity teamed up with MIT, Harvard, and the United Nations Development Programme to introduce a free and open-source AI literacy program called Digi-Wise. Delivered in partnership with educators in the developing world, it encourages children to spot AI-fueled misinformation, use AI tools responsibly in the classroom, and even develop their own AI tools from scratch.
As part of this, the charity has developed its own generative AI chatbot called Ferby. It allows users to access and personalize educational resources from the Internet-Free Education Resource Bank, an online library containing hundreds of free and open-source learning materials.
Education Above All said it's already being used by over 5 million Indian children to access "project-based learning" in partnership with Indian nonprofit Mantra4Change. More recently, Education Above All has embedded Ferby into edtech platform SwiftChat, which is used by 124 million students and teachers across India.
"Ferby curates, customizes, and creates learning materials to fit local realities, so a teacher in rural Malawi can run the right science experiment as easily as a teacher in downtown Doha," said Aishwarya Shetty, an education specialist at Education Above All. "By marrying offline ingenuity with AI convenience, we make learning local, low-resource, and always within reach, yet at scale."
Education Above All is among a group of organizations using AI to tackle global inequality and work toward realizing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Created in 2015, the UN SDGs comprise 17 social, economic, and environmental targets that serve as guidelines for nations, businesses, and individuals to follow to help achieve a more peaceful and prosperous world. Education Above All's projects fall under SDG 4: inclusive and equitable education.
A global effort
A range of other organizations are using AI to augment and enhance their education programming.
Tech To The Rescue, a global nonprofit that connects charities with pro-bono software development teams to meet their goals, is another organization using AI in support of the UN SDGs. Last year, it launched a three-year AI-for-good accelerator program to help NGOs meet the various UN SDGs using AI.
One organization to benefit from the program is Mercy Corps, a humanitarian group that works across over 40 countries to tackle crises like poverty, the climate crisis, natural disasters, and violence. Through the accelerator, it created an AI strategy tool that helps first responders predict disasters and coordinate resources. The World Institute on Disability AI also participated in the accelerator program, creating a resource-matching system that helps organizations allocate support to people with disabilities in hours rather than weeks.
Similarly, the International Telecommunication Union — the United Nations' digital technology agency, and one of its oldest arms — is supporting organizations using technology to achieve the UN SDGs through its AI for Good Innovation Factory startup competition. For example, an Indian applicant — a startup called Bioniks — has enabled a teenager to reclaim the ability to do simple tasks like writing and getting dressed through the use of AI-powered prosthetics.
Challenges to consider
While AI may prove to be a powerful tool for achieving the UN SDGs, it comes with notable risks. Again, as AI models are largely developed by American tech giants in an industry already constrained by gender and racial inequality, unconscious bias is a major flaw of AI systems.
To address this, Shetty said layered prompts for non-English users, human review of underlying AI datasets, and the creation of indigenous chatbots are paramount to achieving Education Above All's goals.
AI models are also power-intensive, making them largely inaccessible to the populations of developing countries. That's why Shetty urges AI companies to provide their solutions via less tech-heavy methods, like SMS, and to offer offline features so users can still access AI resources when their internet connections drop. Open-source, free-of-charge subscriptions can help, too, she added.
AI as a source for good
Challenges aside, Shetty is confident that AI can be a force for good over the next few years, particularly around education. She told BI, "We are truly energized by how the global education community is leveraging AI in education: WhatsApp-based math tutors reaching off-grid learners; algorithms that optimize teacher deployment in shortage areas; personalized content engines that democratize education; chatbots that offer psychosocial support in crisis zones and more."
But Shetty is clear that AI should augment, rather than displace, human educators. And she said the technology should only be used if it can solve challenges faced by humans and add genuine value.
"Simply put," she said, "let machines handle the scale, let humans handle the soul, with or without AI tools."
The author (middle) has become close with his younger neighbors.
Courtesy of Chen Yan
After graduating from Yale, I moved back in with my parents in a low-income building in Brooklyn.
When I was growing up, I became close with all my neighbors who struggled with poverty.
Returning home after living on an Ivy League campus has been confusing.
Four years ago, when people asked me which part of college I was most excited for, I always said having my own room.
Yale's dorms were a welcome change from the living conditions in my Brooklyn neighborhood. On the outside, the place my parents rented looked like any other two or three-family house, but inside, every floor was leased out to multiple families.
My upbringing was many things: love and a chorus of voices that included a Vietnam War veteran, four children, and an expert crocheter. They were all my neighbors — many of them low-income. Every evening, we gathered for communal dinners, sharing stories and laughs. But privacy was never part of the equation.
I left that environment for the private world of the Ivy League, living in dorms that radiated privilege.
And then I blinked, and last May, I graduated. After four years, I stepped out of the privilege, access, and relentless ambition that Yale had afforded me and returned to my family's Brooklyn home.
Moving home after college was a jump back to reality
When I arrived at my apartment after graduation, the first thing I did was hug one of the younger tenants, a 10-year-old girl I consider my sister. She waited for me at the door with flowers — a belated graduation present, she said. Later that evening, with her mother's permission, we took the N train to her favorite spot: Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk.
We had to make a pit stop at Coney's Cones, of course. Inside, she stood on her tiptoes, squinting at the selection of gelato and sorbet. "Eyeglasses," I wrote in my notepad of things to buy for her. I leaned down and whispered, "Don't look at the prices. Get anything."
Once we were seated, I asked how things had been. She told me that they were the same. At school, she enjoys math but dislikes writing, and the staircases in the projects still reek of cigarettes, but at least the neighbor's cat comes by once in a while to play with her.
"It's kind of lonely without you here," she suddenly blurted.
I tried to explain that I had to leave for college, that it wasn't about her. I wanted to say something — to fix her loneliness, her abandonment — but my mouth was just a home for my teeth. I reached for her hand, and we exited the café, heading toward the line to purchase Ferris wheel tickets.
I couldn't help grow solemn. The sad reality of building relationships with other tenants is that there is nothing more we wish than to see each other leave the situation we find ourselves in. No one wishes to live in the projects forever. This means saying goodbye at some point — and leaving loved ones behind.
I'm now thinking more about what it meant to be at Yale
An elite education doesn't guarantee stability or a sense of belonging, especially not for first-generation graduates navigating the job market. We often lack a safety net and carry the weight of family responsibilities. What my Ivy League education does offer is a chance: the foundation to build a future for myself and my family.
Still, many of my neighbors and friends remain where they've always been, caught in cycles of poverty, domestic trauma, and systemic injustice. The pandemic only further crippled those living at or under the poverty line.
College was never the finish line. It was the beginning of a more complicated story — one in which I must navigate ambition with memory, privilege with purpose, and personal advancement with a renewed commitment to support others in my community through their struggles, especially those without access to open doors.
But the truth is, it took a village for me to get to Yale, and many of my greatest supporters were not related to me by blood.
I'm trying to reconcile my future with my family's and neighbors'
Inside the Ferris wheel gondola, just as we were about to reach the top, my apartment-mate proudly took out a fluffy purse that I had bought for her 8th birthday. It was heavy, full of coins. She told me that her mother began paying her 50 cents for taking out the trash or washing the dishes, and one of our neighbors occasionally hires her to water his plants.
"Wow, you're rich," I said, nudging her playfully.
We laughed, and the setting sun caught our faces. In the distance, the waves rolled back and forth, and I wondered how many more times I'd get to share these moments with her before the world pulled us apart again. I won't let it.
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