How Would ChatGPT Say It?

Online learning has been an amazing experience for me. I learned a bit of programming from some basic tutorials, slowly worked my way up to full stack web development, and finally changed careers and enrolled in a CS Master’s program here at NYU, all using mostly online, asynchronous resources. Most of the benefit for me has been in being able to review things as many times as I like, which isn’t as easy in a traditional classroom environment. When I got my first programming job though, I realized that although I had the coding skills, I’d never developed the ability to speak about them out loud. I eventually built up my vocabulary by listening to my coworkers in meetings and discussions, but a great alternative available now is to get help from a chatbot like ChatGPT.

Summer classes at Tandon are usually online and smaller, so there isn’t much opportunity for discussion. Last summer, I took a Java class that used familiar terminology, but this summer, I took Computer Networking, which was completely new to me. Networking is very detail-oriented, but it also requires you to explain how all the little processes work together, in normal language. I noticed my inability to describe networking concepts immediately. When I tried to answer questions during class, I frequently used the wrong word. At best, I felt awkward stringing sentences together, so I tried to say as little as possible.

In the midterm review, our professor told us what networking processes we would need to be able to describe end-to-end. For example, “what happens when your computer tries to contact a computer in Europe?” Although I knew what order the processes followed, I kept getting hung up on individual words when I tried writing an answer for my notes. So, I asked ChatGPT for help!

As expected, it gave me a long and confident explanation of how routers use IP addresses to figure out where to send network traffic. I used my knowledge from class to edit it down, but even reading the long description helped me develop my ear for networking-speak. After collecting a few more ChatGPT-initiated descriptions, I was able to feel confident as I studied, and I did pretty well on the exam. I wouldn’t want to rely on a chatbot to provide information that I didn’t know myself, but I really appreciated leaning on ChatGPT to put words together for me. Sometimes, a chatty learning partner is exactly what you need.