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The Value of a Degree in 2026: Students' Thoughts on Generative AI

In a time where technology evolves daily, it can be easy to worry about your next steps. As a result, many seem to ask how valuable higher education really is in 2026. This is something we think about all the time in our lives as students, and so we decided to jump on here and write a post about it!

We hope to cover two sides of the story, speaking on both graphic design, and games development/software engineering – with both being fields impacted in significant ways by the rise of AI and its use all around us. You'll be hearing from two Norwich University of the Arts student ambassadors, with our thoughts and feelings on this.

Charlotte's thoughts:
I’m Charlotte, a third year Graphic Design student here at Norwich Uni Arts. Over the course of my four years here (I completed an integrated foundation year of study before my three years), the rise of AI has been a topic of conversation that comes up on a daily basis on my course, and is one that has been lingering throughout my entire duration here. So I thought that I would share with you some things that I have been told by people in industry, in hope that it can answer any questions that any of you have or reduce any concerns about how valuable design courses still are.

As part of my course, we get to attend weekly talks by people from industry. These include such a wide variety of people and design agencies of all sizes and have proven to be extremely insightful. One thing that has really stood out to me over the last few weeks, is how agencies now are going about their use of AI.

In most of the talks that we have had, agencies have been explaining to us how AI can be used as a ‘tool’ to aid design, but not to generate the thinking. They’re saying that now, ideas are more important than ever before, and that portfolios should be ideas lead, and that the use of AI can just help to portray the creative thinking. For example, AI can help showcase your work on in-situ photos, and it can bring ideas to life and can create extravagant packaging and displays that could otherwise be next to impossible to do by hand.

The overall outcome of the industry talks, is that whilst none of the agencies use AI to generate any final work for them and their clients (or will be anytime soon due to copyrighting), they do use it to mock-up THEIR OWN ideas quickly, to save time editing, ready for their initial client presentations and to show the client the potential that their ideas have. So effectively, embracing AI as a tool and a way to push ideas, but absolutely not to do any of the thinking or idea generation. They have really been homing in on the importance of our coursework and design and development stages of design, as initial sketches are becoming increasingly more important to show the genuine thought processes behind ideas.

My current, and personal, stance on AI at the minute is that I do not feel threatened by it, and I do believe that for the foreseeable, graphic design jobs are safe and won’t be replaced any time soon, however I am getting the feeling that eventually, people who use AI to aid their work will get further than those who don’t. BUT, that being said, I’m a student and this is a process, and I am only relaying what I have heard from those in the industry. 😊

Athena's thoughts:
Hi, I’m Athena, a second-year student studying BSc Games Development at Norwich University of the Arts. 💫 Naturally, my course is very centred around technology, with most of my uni work being related in some way to programming and/or the video game development pipeline.

Generative AI going from a new novelty to a scary prospect so quickly over the span of a few years was quite scary to watch, particularly living through this time as a young person applying for university. Thanks to university, however, I have been able to hone my craft and develop my skills without having to worry too much about how generative AI will impact what I am learning regarding my career. The university have a clear set out policy on AI use, which was one very reassuring aspect of my learning.

Now that I am focusing on networking and portfolio building in the hopes of achieving a postgraduate job, there is a lot of talk about generative AI and its uses in software development and game design. I have learnt along the way that AI has its place in some niches, although several big game studios have confirmed that they will not be using it in their workflow. This means that in essence many young professionals are now entering a field where use cases for generative AI will be encountered, but how much you use it can be a very personal choice at this stage. Particularly in Games Development/Design where much of finding work is producing a portfolio, your work will speak for itself and the skills you learn at university are still immensely valuable and irreplaceable. Showing your passion for and skill in your field will get you a long way, and I believe higher education is a valuable tool that can help facilitate that.

Closing thoughts:
All in all, we hope this post was helpful, even in some small way. Applying to university can be scary enough as it is without having to think so far ahead in the future. Luckily, there are many resources available to help you. For example, you can find contact details for Norwich University of the Arts here -> Contact Us. Our incredible student recruitment team are always happy to help. Also, please feel free to ask any questions or advice on this thread, as we would be happy to give further insight or information about any and all things uni!

-Charlotte and Athena, Student Ambassadors 😊

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