5 ways students use ChatGPT to study and learn

Study chats from the first cohort of the ChatGPT Lab

Over the past month, in the first-ever ChatGPT Lab, we met with a special cohort of students from across the U.S. to understand how they actually use ChatGPT. In this post, we’re sharing five inspiring ways students in the Lab use ChatGPT to study, and ultimately think more deeply, move ideas forward, and build things they care about.

Do you know a college student who would be a good fit for the Lab? We’re specifically looking to connect with undergraduate students in the U.S. who use ChatGPT daily and are curious and passionate about the role of AI in the future of education and their early career. Applications close tomorrow for the second cohort, which will run from April 28 to May 31, 2025. Learn more and apply.

Let’s take a look at the study chats from the students in our first cohort.

Quiz yourself

To get ready for her advertising exam, Meghna Goli of the University of Illinois turned her class slides into a quiz and put her knowledge to the test. While quizzing, she asked Chat to change the tone to meet her where she was at — making the questions more difficult and comprehension-based, and changing the setting to a rainy day in a café. “I think this is helpful for the days when I can’t focus at all, because it’s more like a story,” Meghna said.

Upload any relevant course materials, then try this chat:

I have an upcoming exam for [course]. Create a practice quiz for me based on the material. Ask me each question one by one. The exam will be [exam format], so please follow this style.

Results:

Make studying a game

To spice up studying for his international relations class, Liam Blackshaw-Brown of the University of Denver turned his notes into a game. “It was a good way to get a brief overview of what I was learning about in a more engaging way, because the document was quite dense,” Liam told us.

Upload any relevant course materials, then try this chat:

I am struggling to understand [topic] and want you to create me a game to help me [learning goals].

Results:

Get more from a lecture

To complement her psychology professor’s lecture, Daisy Sheng of Carnegie Mellon University uploads lecture slides and has a conversation with them. She said it allowed her to “keep my brain engaged, take down further notes, and synthesize info to get a better high-level view of the content.”

Upload your slides, then try this chat:

Can you take the following slides and help me learn the content faster, independently, and more interestingly?

Results:

Visualize a concept

For Emi Mathew of Stanford University, Chat helps her absorb a topic by turning concepts into visuals. During an MCAT study session, she was able to generate specific, relevant images to better understand concepts. When she searched on the web for general reaction images, Emi said, “it was not giving me anything specific to the MCAT questions. It was hard to compare online images of general reactions to the one this question was asking me about. Chat was able to give me an image of exactly what the question was referencing.”

Prompt:

Please create an image to help me visualize [concept].

Results:

Share your feelings

Parker Jones of California Polytechnic State University was lacking energy when preparing for physics exams, and he told Chat how he was feeling. Together, Parker and Chat roasted physics. “I genuinely had fun doing this (which is a first for physics), and it was also helpful to approach it through this lens,” he told us.

Try adjusting your chat like this:

I’m feeling ___ today. With that in mind, could you ___, knowing that's how I feel?

Results:

Have a chat you can’t live without when it comes to studying?

A special thank-you to the students who helped us source and vet these inspiring chats in the inaugural ChatGPT Lab: Mia Purse, Clare Antonow, Cole Lee, Connor Raney, Delphine Tai-Beauchamp, Emilin Mathew, Emily Hsu, Ethan Miller, Grace DeBoer, Grant Gutzwiller, Harsha Ravindran, Isaac Seiler, Jane Drinkwater, Karina Kejriwal, Keith Curry, Liam Blackshaw-Brown, Meghna Goli, Michael Loff, Michael Wang, Monica Adams, Nolan Windham, Parker Jones, Parv Jain, and Yashika Sharma.

Learn more and apply to the next ChatGPT Lab.