A student on the power of context
How Parker Jones (Cal Poly) uses ChatGPT as an intern, a tour guide, and a thought partner — and why context makes all the difference
“Some students treat ChatGPT like a vending machine,” Parker Jones, a sophomore at California Polytechnic State University, told us. “They want to use it to get in, get out, and get answers.”
Parker was part of the first cohort of the ChatGPT Lab and among the students who believe ChatGPT’s real power isn’t in getting quick answers but in deepening learning, exploring new perspectives, and creating more personal, thoughtful work. “My favorite sessions with Chat are the ones where I spend more time than I would’ve without it. Where it makes me think harder, reflect deeper, and actually engage with my learning. The same tool that helps one student skip the process can help another fall in love with it again. Right now, there are countless students quietly using Chat not to escape the challenge of learning but to tackle it head-on,” Parker says.
In this interview, Parker shares three ways he’s recently used ChatGPT, along with a tool he built, the Student Tuner, to help students get more personalized results.
What are three of the most valuable ways you used ChatGPT recently?
1. Creating a practice quiz
I wanted to make study material for my algorithm design class. Since I’m in “creating” mode, I treat Chat like an intern — it has the knowledge, but I need to clearly explain the task. I provide context, identify my understanding, explain my upcoming quiz, and ask for a specific format. Instead of just getting a generic quiz on a subject, I get personalized problems to work through.
2. Breaking a paper into short stories
I read a paper about the Roman transport network for class and wanted to learn more. Since I’m in “learning” mode, I treat Chat like a tour guide — I don’t want a summary; I want a grand tour of the topic that connects to what I care about. Along the way, I follow my curiosity by asking spontaneous questions. Instead of just statically reading, I am dynamically discussing a topic in a way that interests me.
3. Get advice on first time career experiences
ChatGPT can help answer embarrassing questions or the ones that are maybe not worth going to ask someone else. I wanted to know whether I should follow up with a company after an interview. It can be hard as a student to navigate these “first-experiences” as new adults. Knowing what the right thing to do is, when there is an already established set of unspoken rules and customs is scary. I really appreciate ChatGPT’s ability to give me honest life advice.
What tips do you have for peers on how to get more out of ChatGPT?
My biggest piece of advice: just start using it. Try things. Talk to Chat. Be honest. Ask weird and random questions. If you ever feel stuck, ask yourself: “How would I ask a good friend to help me with this?” If you can start the conversation, there’s a wildly thoughtful partner on the other side of that text box, excited to help with any idea you have.
If you then want to level up, the easiest way to get more out of Chat is to put more into it. That advice sounds simple, but it plays out in a few specific ways:
Instructions: If the task is complex, your instructions should be too. Break it into phases. Provide clear structure. Guide the conversation.
Context: Chat feeds off context. Your class notes. Your confusion. Your learning goals. The more it knows, the more useful it becomes.
Personalization: It’s not a vending machine. It’s a super learning assistant. If it understands you and your preferences, everything gets better.
Students are often trained to keep inputs short and efficient — they want to use a tool to get in, get out, and get answers. It feels weird to be verbose and personal. This friction is something I saw often holding students back.
To make that easier, I built something called Student Tuner to help. It’s a tool that quickly walks you through a questionnaire and then turns your answers into custom instructions for ChatGPT that offer it baseline context every time you start a new prompt. It’s a great way to help it understand you, however much you want it to.
What questions do you have for Parker?
Parker Jones is a Software Engineering and AI major at Cal Poly with a minor in Psychology, focused on designing better AI systems through insights from human psychology. Originally from Snoqualmie, Washington, he loves the creative expression of building things—most recently, he created an interactive app and website to help visitors explore the history of Cal Poly’s outdoor architectural museum.
If you're working on research or product in this space and need a slightly overconfident, very enthusiastic, and highly curious intern, reach out to Parker.
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This was really good. As someone who has started using ChatGPT(4.0) about 2 months ago I have been more productive in this time than I have ever been. Especially as someone who is into psychology, spiritually and as an astrologer this helps me breakdown concepts for common people to understand. I definitely agree that what holds people back is it feeling “Weird” to get personal with it but once you break those barriers you start to really tap into something special. This is a gift to humanity, it’s up to you to take advantage of how you desire to utilize it to make your life more efficient.
I like how you have captured a unique use of chatGPT. You may want to go to my Substack and read an article which wrote called "Let me introduce you to my A.I staff." I have used context to enrich my prompts as you have but additionally I have used AI generated context to provide thier context for different AI agents. This method of using 2 agents has quadrupled my output.