Designing at Scale

Leading with AI

Preparing students to lead, adapt, and apply AI in a rapidly evolving world.

If you’ve walked through the Leinweber Building lately, you’ve likely heard a new kind of “coding” in the air. It isn't the rhythmic clicking of syntax-heavy typing; it’s the steady hum of a conversation. This is SI 405: Applied Generative AI, a course where students aren't just learning to use AI, they’re learning to orchestrate it. Taught by Associate Professor David Jurgens, SI 405 is radically redefining what it means to be "job-ready" in an era of constant automation.

In the world of Generative AI, a week is a lifetime. David describes a "live development" approach to teaching, where a Wednesday lecture might feature technology that didn't even exist when the semester began. For students, this provides a rare, competitive edge: the ability to learn and adapt at the actual speed of the industry.

"It’s tough," David says with a laugh. "You have to basically build the train tracks while the train is coming down. When I pitched this class last summer, almost none of the content I planned is in the syllabus now."

While a traditional computer science course peers behind the veil to see how these massive models are built, SI 405 treats AI as a multipurpose power tool for the information professional. This distinction is where the future-proofing happens.

"We don't need to know how they’re built," David explains, "but we do need to know how to use them effectively. We’re thinking more as project managers and orchestrators."

David envisions a future where the mechanical software development piece of a job becomes automated, but the project manager role becomes indispensable. In this new landscape, a UMSI student acts as a "two-person team." They use agentic tools like Claude or Cursor to handle the heavy technical lifting, while they focus on the high-level strategy: defining SMART goals, navigating client needs, and performing the ethical auditing that an AI simply cannot do.

For students who have historically felt intimidated by programming, David has a clear message: The door is finally open. "Software development is going to become incredibly cheap," he predicts. This doesn't mean developers disappear; it means the most valuable skill is no longer memorizing code, but the ability to express information needs.

"If you can get through that mentality of 'Oh, it's programming,' you realize it’s actually more of a conversation," David says. By learning to "vibe code" students with backgrounds in UX, library science, or information analysis are suddenly as technically capable as seasoned engineers, provided they know how to ask the right questions.

Future-proofing isn't just about technical skill; it’s about navigating the messy sociotechnical reality. David is quick to point out the hurdles ahead, particularly regarding equity and institutional independence. "What does it mean if our education system is beholden to one company with one good tool?" he asks.

By grappling with these questions now, SI 405 students aren't just entering the workforce as employees; they are entering as leaders who understand the risks of digital inequality and the importance of open-source alternatives.

As SI 405 continues to evolve, it is a testament to the UMSI mission: We aren't just reacting to the Information Age; we are teaching our students how to lead it, one prompt at a time.