2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The landscape of higher education is already being reshaped by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), and university operations are being impacted in many ways. One particular aspect that has showed promise in colleges of engineering and computer science is the use of AI and LLM to help students in departmental entry-level courses, many of which have historically been difficult for students to successfully navigate. In the past these courses were viewed as gateway courses, without which a student would not stay in the major. However, over the past couple of decades, more emphasis has been placed on the scholarship of teaching and learning, supplemental instruction, experiential learning and the development of novel methods to help improve overall academic student success. While all of these strategies are helpful, we aim to supplement these positive impacts via our work in the development of AI and LLM to improve student success in a key course taken by petroleum engineering (and often by chemical engineering) students. Offered as an interactive resource to struggling students, to reaffirm performance of successful students, or serve as a study aid, the bot guides students through problem identification, developing solution methods, working carefully through key steps and verifying solutions. Instructors can use these tools to run virtual help sessions, exam study hours and serve as a reference / resource material to review content that was taught earlier in the semester and may need to be recalled by students when solving more complex design problems in the field.