Penn State College of IST Launches New Artificial Intelligence Major

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology is offering a new major for the Fall 2025 semester: artificial intelligence methods and applications (AIMA).

The College of IST enrolled its first students in 1999 and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024. It boasts around 2,000 undergraduate students, 80 full-time faculty members and 17,000 alumni. The college currently offers six majors: cybersecurity analytics and operations, data sciences, enterprise technology integration, human-centered design and development, information sciences and technology and security and risk analysis.

The AIMA major responds to the ever-increasing world of AI and its need for future competent professionals.

“As AI increasingly becomes an important driver of the global economy, demand is high for well-trained professionals who have both the technical and interpersonal skills to lead in this new era of innovation,” College of IST dean Andrea Tapia said. “The AIMA degree will prepare students to navigate challenges and opportunities in the age of AI.”

The world has seen a rise in AI technology, including large language models such as ChatGPT and innovations such as AI-powered robots. AI's growth has helped people and organizations in various ways, but it’s important to consider the risks and accountability of AI technologies and decisions.

AIMA is built to prepare students for designing, testing and establishing AI-based solutions. It gives students knowledge in a variety of subjects, including math, machine learning, computer programming and AI ethics. Organizations affiliated with the College of IST, such as the Nittany AI Alliance and the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, support this new major.

AIMA offers Human-Centered AI, Responsible Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI Methods and Applications, and Natural Language Processing courses. These subjects enable students to identify problems AI can solve, learn AI skills to develop solutions and communicate risks to stakeholders. This focus is vital to guiding and progressing organizations in AI-centered industries.

AIMA is designed to give students both technical skills and ethical perspectives. Students will delve into machine learning and programming while also comprehending the social implications of these technologies.

The Brookings Institution says AI can significantly change tasks for over 30% of workers. Educational institutions such as Penn State must have an impetus to equip students with technical and soft skills to succeed in the AI-driven economy.

Penn State joins a longer list of distinguished colleges that offer an AI-related major. Some include Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, MIT, Princeton University and Cornell University.

Current and new students can enroll in AIMA for the fall 2025 semester. Students may consult with their academic advisors or visit the AIMA webpage for further details.

In a firsthand interview with John Yen, the professor-in-charge of data sciences/AI at the College of IST, he shared his perspective on the AIMA major.

Describing his hopes for the program, Yen said that the goal of the program is to educate the next-generation AI-knowledge workers who are capable of understanding the foundations of AI and are able to use various AI methods and tools to solve real-world problems, innovate solutions, be aware of the potential risks and take suitable actions and best practices to reduce potential risks or negative impacts of AI in the application domain.

Regarding the challenges of keeping the curriculum current in an ever-changing AI landscape, Yen said that the faculty wanted to emphasize educating the foundation, knowledge, skills and state of AI.

However, even though AI is ever-changing, the technology stands on common foundations. Therefore, the students must have a deep understanding of the foundation so that after graduation, even when the technology evolves, they can still learn, adapt and understand the advancement of the technology.

When asked what the AIMA major would focus on, Yen said that the major will introduce both foundations and applications, and said there were two ways to talk about applications.

The first was the modality of the application areas, including natural language processing (NLP) and video-related applications.

The second was the industry type, which includes knowledge and skills that students could apply to AI. The curriculum allows students to choose courses relevant to an area of interest.

Yen provided some helpful tips for students who are on the fence about whether to select this major. He said students should ask themselves whether they would be interested in innovating AI solutions for real-world problems.

Yen said he believes that motivation is the key. He added that AI 100, a required course for this new major, will be taught by IST professor Dr. Vasant Honavar in the Fall 2025 semester. It is also a Gen Ed course with a GS designation satisfying the social and behavioral criteria.

He concluded that it could be a nice testing course so that a student could take the course to see if they like the major or not, and even if they didn’t like the course and did not want to continue with the major, it would still count as a Gen Ed.

Yen stated that AI 100 has no prerequisite class, has a deep introduction from a conceptual viewpoint, and does not involve programming.

Other AI courses, however, will involve programming.

Yen also said that the college is interested in partnering with Nittany AI because they have connections to real-world problems and have engaged with students to develop solutions to solve real-world problems.

Yen said AIMA is a fantastic opportunity and talked about the capstone project, which will be a two-course sequence in a student’s senior year where they will choose a real-world problem that requires an AI solution, identify a specific area where the problem can be tackled using AI and dig into a deeper solution. He said that they are very excited about the capstone course.

Yen added that the development of the major involves faculty from not only the College of IST but also faculty in the Computer Science and Mathematics departments. He said the major is an exciting result of this multi-college collaboration. The major leverages the rich expertise of faculty in all three colleges to develop a curriculum that everybody is proud of, excited to teach, and feels addresses the needs of future students.

He mentioned that there are two AI majors, the AIMA in IST and a similar major in the College of Engineering, which share many courses because faculty from both sides worked together to develop many co-courses.

Finally, Yen says that they look forward to continuing to work together to advance the education for the next-generation AI knowledge workers, including looking to introduce master-level programs for AI.

Prithvi Sudhakar is a third-year majoring in cybersecurity. To contact him, please email pzs5683@psu.edu.