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Speaker 1: Further up the old education chain from the primary schools

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Speaker 1: which we were just talking about. Universities are seeing a

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Speaker 1: spike and students looking at AI. Masters of Artificial Intelligence

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Speaker 1: degrees are now being offered at many campuses. At Victoria,

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Speaker 1: numbers are up fifty percent year on year. The program

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Speaker 1: director there is Andrew Linson is with it. Andrew, very

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Speaker 1: good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Is this a fad or not?

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's a sad. I think there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of hype for sure. But there's certainly a

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Speaker 2: big change going on in our society with AI coming

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Speaker 2: to the forefront, and I think students are on to

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Speaker 2: it and want to study it.

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Speaker 1: And from your point of view, at university, is there

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Speaker 1: a structured pathway for students to go? If I study that,

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Speaker 1: there's where I'm going to end up in?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, definitely. So Victoria we've got the first undergraduate

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Speaker 2: degree in AI, and so students do that degree, they

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Speaker 2: can have an all sort of interesting jobs. I've been a

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Speaker 2: data scientist. Where can portray me zero or the big

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Speaker 2: big name companies? Right?

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Speaker 1: And so how do you teach something successfully that's unfolding

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Speaker 1: at the rate it is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question, even though unfolding quite quickly.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of core fundamentals that have been around

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Speaker 2: for sort of ten twenty thirty years, and so we

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Speaker 2: focus on teaching those first and the sort of first

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Speaker 2: and second year and then sort of third year, fourth year.

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Speaker 2: We look more at the advanced stuff more than the

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Speaker 2: most recent things, and we do to be quite adapt

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Speaker 2: adaptive there for sure.

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Speaker 1: Do they have to bring anything from high school by

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Speaker 1: way of learning or can they pick it up from

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Speaker 1: scratch given it's all so new?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so redesigner chryptrum to be pretty approachable. So the

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Speaker 2: first course they do it is no pre because it's

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Speaker 2: but having a bit of mass, having a bit of

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Speaker 2: digital technology is always helpful, of course.

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Speaker 1: Right do you know what a charted structural engineer is?

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Speaker 2: By the way, not in detail. I couldn't say that now.

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Speaker 1: No, No, it's just reading a fascinating article yesterday about

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Speaker 1: all the jobs we can't fill in this country and

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Speaker 1: some of them are for the obvious, like plumbers and

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Speaker 1: drain layers. But a charted structural engineer inns one hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty thousand dollars a year. I don't even know

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Speaker 1: what that is. There's clearly a lot of jobs out

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Speaker 1: there like that, and no wonder we don't have any

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Speaker 1: of them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit strange. I mean the thing of

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Speaker 2: AI as roller over that there's lots of new jobs

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Speaker 2: coming out as well. So even though you're going to

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Speaker 2: the program now, you might not be as many options

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Speaker 2: thus options, but there'll be us a new jobs by

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Speaker 2: the time people graduate, so maybe'll be AI engineers as

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Speaker 2: well someday.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you haven't even thought of. That's all part of it,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. Andrew appreciator Andrew Lentsen Victoria University program directly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just that the story made no sense to me

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Speaker 1: in the sense that these are the jobs we can't fill.

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Speaker 1: So applications per job, this is basic stuff like diesel mechanics, electricians, plumbers.

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Speaker 1: Applications per job are seventeen percent high year on year

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Speaker 1: for electricians right and over three times as high as

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Speaker 1: pre COVID. So you think they're applying like there's no tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: Why can't you fiel the job? How came you got

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Speaker 1: so many people you can't fill the job? Plumbers have

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Speaker 1: three percent more applications per job year on year almost

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Speaker 1: four times as high as pre COVID levels. We do

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Speaker 1: know that there are some roles that are always particularly

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Speaker 1: hard to fill. And then they cite the example of

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Speaker 1: a charted structural engineer, and the question I would ask

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Speaker 1: you is, how do you become a charted structural engineer?

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Speaker 1: Do you know you're going to be a charter structural

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Speaker 1: engineer or are you into engineering in the broadest of

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Speaker 1: ways to become a chartered structural engineer in later life?

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Speaker 1: Financial controllers too, by the way, very hard to get

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Speaker 1: hold of the financial control. I know when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid, you I didn't have a kid say I

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Speaker 1: want to be a fireman or a jet pilot struct

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Speaker 1: I was thinking charted structural engineer for me, thanks, and

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Speaker 1: yet you ended up here I know.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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