The new artificial intelligence minor at Virginia Tech

Engineering is one of the fields shaping the future. 

Now, more than ever before, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a critical part of college education, the workforce, and everything in between. Virginia Tech adapted to that development by creating an AI minor for undergraduate students. While the minor is part of the College of Engineering, it is inherently interdisciplinary and open to all majors. It aims to equip students with the ability to apply AI to a field of their choosing through technical foundations that are prerequisites for various modules, such as computational, arts, social sciences, and human impact.

Why the College of Engineering?

Any student who signs up for the AI minor will gain key technical foundations from the core minor requirements. Each of these courses is taught by faculty in the Department of Computer Science, meaning students from all disciplines will get the rigor of an engineering education. This means that graduates having completed the minor would be well-versed in AI engineering, where their technical foundation can be applied to build real solutions to problems.  When combined with the different module options, students will be well-equipped to handle both their own domain and technical aspects as it pertains to AI engineering. 

How does this help engineers succeed?

While some engineering fields are more affected by AI than others, all of them will inevitably play a role in a world where AI is increasingly prevalent. Computer Science tends to be at the forefront of this transition, but anything from environmental engineers ensuring sustainable AI infrastructure to industrial engineers harnessing AI for an increase in software productivity serve as potential shifts elsewhere. When students go through the 18 credits required for the minor, they will be able to contribute nuanced perspectives and solve these kinds of problems. 

Students can expect to gain an added benefit of understanding how to navigate problem-solving with AI. Many students go through their undergraduate career without having received advice on how they should mix their critical-thinking skills with using AI as assistance for assignments, beyond the policies their professor may have shared on the syllabus. Similar to study methods in general, there is no single solution that will work for every student. Instead, students are left to try whatever works best for them, likely with little preparation before college. The AI minor provides the intuition of striking that balance between manual research and AI assistance through the technical foundations and future AI applications in the course of study.

There is also a strong emphasis on AI literacy in the workforce, where employers are increasingly looking for graduates who can balance their critical thinking skills with using AI for specific goals. According to the National Association for Colleges and Employers (NACE), more than one-third of entry-level jobs require AI skills, nearly triple the amount in fall 2025. To that end, the minor has a requirement devoted to Ethical, Societal, and Cultural Impacts of AI, all of which are valued facets of any workplace. While these requirements aren’t linked to job requirements necessarily, it provides vital context to a technology which recent graduates will be at the forefront of. 

Benefits of the AI Minor

Taken together, the technical  foundation, social and ethical dimensions, and interdisciplinary modules of the AI minor provide all the ingredients for an AI-literate Virginia Tech graduate. Moreover, these graduates will know how to evaluate and engineer AI solutions to problems in anything from environmental to computer science. 

While it is  possible to dismiss the program altogether as over hyped or rife with buzzwords, there is data supporting that the minor is simply meeting the demand of changing workforce priorities. In particular, the NACE cites that at least half of employers seeking AI skills ask for nuanced abilities such as analyzing and revising AI output, building AI tools, or developing effective AI prompts. The AI minor equips students to implement these capabilities with an engineering mindset, open to any and all undergraduate students.