UCSD created the Taner Halicioglu School of Data Science years before AI became mainstream, teaching data fundamentals across business, science, and engineering. Unlike most universities where departments operate in silos, UCSD built a cross-campus school that lets engineers share AI skills with non-engineers, emphasizing practical learning over pure theory.
It is, and it's actually, I would say, a rarity that a university is doing what the AI school is, to be honest. Most schools are their own fiefdom, and then every department is its own fiefdom from the school itself. And I would say UCSD, it's the one area that actually started early with creating a school of data science across the entire campus endowed by Taner Halcioglu many years ago, an alum who who said data science is the future, which turns out it is because data is the future of AI, right? You have nothing to put into AI without a pool of data. And so the, the Taner Halicioglu School of Data Science, which was not connected to any one department, it was across the entire campus, really taught everyone the value of these skill sets, intrinsic skill sets, which are pre-AI, if you will. Just as much a business major, a science major, an engineering major should understand the importance of this. And then they did the same when they kind of folded it into the School of AI, which also I believe is cross-campus. It's really about teaching everyone a bunch of skills that you don't have to be an engineer for. And those with an engineer bring those skills and teach others learning AI. But to see it across campus is pretty strong. And so I think it's, it feels different compared to what most engineering schools, which are kind of like their own little powerhouse off to the side. Right? This is an ad school that says this is the future of learning and the future of doing, which you also don't get much at UCs. You don't get a lot of hands-on doing. You get a lot of like, this is the theory, go off and do one day, uh, or do it in a lab.
