By Megan Callahan, News Editor, and Armone Gates, Copy Editor

Several colleges have started new AI majors, and starting in the Fall 2026 semester, VSU will jump on the bandwagon. 

VSU will begin a new AI track for computer science majors, and anyone interested in taking these three AI courses.  

The main reason the AI committee created this track is that AI is becoming a greater aspect in our everyday lives, so, they want to prepare students to know the ins and outs of AI, especially for students who have chosen a major very heavily involved in computers, coding, and other major areas of computer science.  

Dr. Krishnendu Roy, Professor and Dept head of Computer Science, elaborates on the usage of AI.  

“AI is an umbrella term.  Within, there are different subfields. For example, machine learning is a very big subfield where you train your computer program to analyze data and learn parents about those data’s that they can then apply to new data sets to gain more insights or offer some tradictions,” he said.  

This AI track committee was a team effort to get off the ground, but it was Dr. Xu that originally had the idea to start this since several other colleges have created AI majors in their schools.  

“The specific class of AI becomes something that’s inevitable. So, it’s something that we cannot just, you know didn’t see or pretend that we can force the students not to do. We have to embrace it and welcome it across the board.” Zhiguang Xu, Professor of Computer Science, said.  

The AI committee consists of 4 professors: Dr. Xu, Dr. Mihail, Dr. Krishnendu Roy, and Dr. Ahana Roy Choudhury. Each of these professors holds a specific role in making this AI track possible.  

“Dr. Xu is the one who kind of came up with the idea of the AI track, Dr. Mihail was the one who had I would say the most initiative, but I really wanted to create the track and we got together, created a committee between the AI professors. So that’s how the committee got created. Dr. Xu, in terms of looking at, has the most experience among the 4 of us and he created the structure that we may want.” Dr. Ahana Roy Choudhury said. 

One of the courses that the AI track offers is a complete overview of Artificial Intelligence. 

Professor Xu, also stated, “One of the courses that I teach is Artificial Intelligence itself. It’s a senior level class, which covers some foundations of you know how the AI models work internally, and we also talk about the application aspect of it.” 

Considering AI is bleeding into several aspects of our lives. So, it is very possible that this new AI track will soon become an AI major for students here at VSU. 

President William Crowe is even planning a new AI lab in Nevins Hall, but it won’t just be for students in the AI track; several computer science majors are welcome to use this new facility as well. 

An architect has been hired to build the AI lab, but it is currently in the process of designing the lab. 

As for the AI track, students have the option to use AI as little or as much as they would like. 

Dr. Ahana explained that it all depends on how much AI they will use. If students want to branch out and do something involving more computer science, coding, etc. But are still in the AI track, they are welcome to as long as AI is still involved.