"Frankly, anti-AI bans are futile. Students and educators increasingly incorporate AI tools openly, altering expectations on assessments and learning outcomes. The Wall Street Journal recently documented that unemployment among recent graduates, especially in tech, is nearly double that of their less credentialed peers, highlighting risks for those clinging to obsolete educational paths."
Commentary
Article
AI Is Disrupting Higher Education: Why Even Valedictorians Must Rethink Their Career Playbooks to Stay Competitive
Author(s):
A Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Q&A with Professor Eric Mazur of Harvard University.
Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics.
Eric Mazur is the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University. At the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, he served as Academic Dean from 2021 until 2024.
He has held appointments as Visiting Professor or Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Leuven in Belgium, National Taiwan University in Taiwan, Carnegie Mellon University, and Hong Kong University.
In 2016, Mazur co-founded Perusall, a social learning platform that emerged from the work done in his class at Harvard. The platform has a user base of over five million students worldwide and is in use at over half the academic institutions in the United States.
Dr. Mazur is author or co-author of 380 scientific publications, 52 patents, and several books, including the Principles and Practice of Physics (Pearson, 2015), a book that presents a groundbreaking new approach to teaching introductory calculus-based physics. In 2011, Dr. Mazur founded Learning Catalytics, a company that uses data analytics to improve learning in the classroom. In 2013 the company was acquired by Pearson.
Q: From preschool to graduate school, many students have long relied on rote memorization to earn top scores and gain admission to elite institutions—pathways that often lead to premier employers like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Pfizer. Now that AI provides instant access to information for everyone, what implications do these emerging technologies have for high-achieving students, like those in one of my recent undergraduate classes at Wharton where 50% were valedictorians and who have spent nearly twenty years distinguishing themselves, often through exceptional memorization skills?
Mazur: I have never witnessed higher education disrupted as profoundly as by AI. The pandemic exposed major weaknesses in traditional and remote teaching models but AI presents a longer-lasting transformation.
For more than 40 years at Harvard, I have emphasized shifting from individual memorization to collaboration. Consider a classic physics puzzle I use: Imagine a flat metal plate with a circular hole. When heated, does the hole get bigger, smaller, or stay the same?
Most students initially answer it shrinks. Yet the hole expands as the metal grows outward.
I ask students to first think independently, then discuss their differing answers with peers. This peer instruction awakens curiosity and critical reasoning in ways memorization cannot, especially in an era when AI can do much of the recall work.1-3
Frankly, anti-AI bans are futile. Students and educators increasingly incorporate AI tools openly, altering expectations on assessments and learning outcomes.
The Wall Street Journal recently documented that unemployment among recent graduates, especially in tech, is nearly double that of their less credentialed peers, highlighting risks for those clinging to obsolete educational paths.4 Moreover, Harvard Business Review research shared how critical thinking, adaptability, and collaboration, not raw memorization are now vital skills to develop.5
Q: As life sciences professionals strive to stay current with the complexities of both the biopharma sector and emerging technologies, what are your top three recommendations for readers aiming to build sustainable careers?
Mazur: First, embrace peer instruction where students actively teach and learn from each other under instructor guidance. This approach not only deepens understanding but helps overcome the "curse of knowledge" where experts forget novice struggles. In my classes, collaborative discussion overrides traditional lectures and better equips students to navigate AI-enhanced challenges.6,7
Second, focus on skills over content mastery. AI will automate many technical tasks, but human skills including ethical judgment, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and AI literacy will distinguish professionals.
Harvard Business School now requires AI fluency in its MBA curriculum to prepare leaders who can responsibly harness these tools.8 Specifically, students must take an AI course, Data Science and AI for Leaders, to graduate from HBS.
Third, ground learning in real-world problem-solving. The Science and Technology in Society Forum, where I participate among global leaders, emphasizes the imperative to blend innovation with social responsibility, vital for fields like pharma. At Harvard’s nanoscale and quantum initiatives, my research exemplifies the need for cross-disciplinary fluency combining physics, biology, and AI-based analytics to solve complex problems.9
In summary, memorization doesn’t cut it—especially now. Success demands curiosity, collaboration, critical thinking, and ethical engagement; human qualities that AI cannot replicate.10
About the Author
Michael Wong is a Part-time Lecturer for the Wharton Communication Program at the University of Pennsylvania. As an Emeritus Co-President and board member of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association as well as a Contributing Writer for the MIT Sloan Career Development Office, Michael’s ideas have been shared in the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review.
References
- Mazur, Eric. “Eric Mazur – Peer Instruction.” YouTube video, 7:48, May 29, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUY049rIjdM.
- Mazur, Eric. “Peer instruction and why assessment is a killer of learning.” YouTube video, 13:43, May 8, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EyJOLTUvqc.
- Lakhani, Karim R., Jen Stave, Douglas Ng, and Daniel Martines. “A Guide to Building Change Resilience in the Age of AI.” Harvard Business Review, July 29, 2025. https://hbr.org/2025/07/a-guide-to-building-change-resilience-in-the-age-of-ai.
- Kamp, Jon. “There Is Now Clearer Evidence AI Is Wrecking Young Americans’ Job Prospects.” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/ai-entry-level-job-impact-5c687c84.
- Fuller, Joseph, and Manjari Raman. “Rethinking the On-Demand Workforce.” Harvard Business Review, November–December 2020. https://hbr.org/2020/11/rethinking-the-on-demand-workforce.
- Mazur, Eric. “Confessions of a Converted Lecturer.” YouTube video, 1:14:22, November 12, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI.
- University of Miami News. “Teaching tools for the future.” November 2024. https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/11/teaching-tools-for-the-future.html.
- Lee, Graham W., and Sarah F. Silverman. “MBA Students at HBS Must Take AI Course To Graduate.” Harvard Crimson, April 4, 2025. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/hbs-makes-ai-class-required.
- UL Research Institutes. “Driving Global Innovation at STS Forum.” September 2023. https://ul.org/news/driving-global-innovation-sts-forum; “Light People: Prof. Eric Mazur speaks about ultrafast optics and education.” Light: Science & Applications, February 25, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-024-01402-8.
- Garfield, Simon. “University just got flipped: how online video is opening up knowledge to the world.” Wired, April 16, 2012. https://www.wired.com/story/university-just-got-flipped.
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