I graduated from undergrad the year that ChatGPT was first released to the public, and I'm now applying to Master's programs for the Fall. As we inch away from the educational realm I knew, an era ruled by StackOverflow and Chegg, I can't help but think how different my learning path would have been had I had access to these tools back then. Depending on your self-control, AI can either give you a competitive edge, even over others using LLMs for everyday tasks, or it can sneakily lead your learning to a plateau.
But, with great power, comes great responsibility. And no, I'm not just talking about the learning cost of using AI maliciously in an academic context (i.e. cheating on exams or labs), but also in financial cost. Every prompt, response, and tool call burns tokens, and tokens cost money. And given the control Chipotle had over my bank account in college, I was sticking to free tiers wherever I could. I assume you are too.
For the money you can spare, however, AI coding agents can build complex apps, explain concepts, and create study resources to help you reinforce your learning. Well-scoped prompts, frugal model choice and appropriate MCP server usage can use a tenth of the tokens of a rambling prompt, maximizing value per request and stretching out that usage window each month.
