Starting next spring, BYU-Idaho will offer a new AI minor through the university’s Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. The minor is becoming available in an academic climate where AI is becoming increasingly prevalent.
Nate Phillips, associate chair for the Computer Science and Engineering Department, oversees the Computer Science and Software Engineering degrees, which include oversight of the creation of this new minor.
“AI has become a huge topic in the last few years. It’s a buzzword as well as an actual, useful tool that companies are starting to build on,” said Phillips.
Phillips says employers hiring students say students need to be good at using AI tools as a software development tool.
“Our thought was that helping students learn how to actually build systems that use AI is something businesses are clamoring for and businesses want,” said Phillips.
Phillips says one of the biggest hurdles of designing the AI minor was the credit limit for minors.
“So, a minor has to be under 25 credits because students here only have a certain number of general electives they can use. So typically, students use their general electives to get a minor if they want a minor,” said Phillips.
The minor’s credit load is set to be between 24 to 26 credits.
The goal, Phillips says, is for the AI minor to enhance the degree students are already going into.
“So, if a student has a degree in Computer Science or Physics or Mathematics with an AI Engineering minor, we hope that that signals to employers that that student is someone who can understand how AI systems work and understand how they could integrate AI technologies into existing software that the company might already have or how to create new systems for that business,” said Phillips.
This minor degree works as a companion with majors such as Computer Science, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Computer Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Business Analytics and more.
Regarding AI ethics, Phillips cited a devotional given by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which Elder Bednar discusses ethical use of AI. BYU-Idaho is using that talk as a guideline to teach students about using AI.
“We don’t want it to be the creator. We don’t want it to be the agent. We want to be using it as a tool to help us,” said Phillips.
Phillips encourages students who want to be on the bleeding edge of technology to add the AI minor to their academic careers.
“We’re right at the beginning of this AI boom. And so why would you not want to be part of that? If you want to be involved with the latest and greatest thing that are happening, with helping to create this technological boom, the AI engineering minor is probably the closest thing you’ll find to do that,” said Phillips.
The new AI Engineering minor will be available for students to take beginning in Spring semester 2026.