Tech-Neill-ogy #74 - 17 November 2024

Welcome to Tech-Neill-ogy #74!

I’m a bit behind in coming back from my two-week jaunt, so apologies for the lateness of this. Took me a while to get resituated at home.

That said, over the past two weeks of travel, I’ve enjoyed countless conversations about AI in the college counseling domain, and there is one thing that keeps popping up when I’m helping counselors refine their craft. It is quite simple: when prompting a chatbot, say “high school college counselor” or your chatbot is likely to think you’re a counselor of college students. Quick tip!

In any case, enjoy this week’s newsletter!

Lately, I’ve been asked by a variety of individuals on how to get better at prompting. Here’s an idea! I stumbled upon this prompt on Reddit that helps you make a prompt through a series of iterative questions. You copy-and-paste the following into your AI chatbot of choice, and answer the questions.

I want you to become my Prompt engineer. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The prompt will be used by you, ChatGPT. You will follow the following process:
1. Your first response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual iterations by going through the next steps.
2. Based on my input, you will generate 2 sections, a) Revised prompt (provide your rewritten prompt, it should be clear, concise, and easily understood by you), b) Questions (ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt).
3. We will continue this iterative process with me providing additional information to you and you updating the prompt in the Revised prompt section until I say we are done.

The beauty of this prompt is that as it askes you each series of questions, it provides a more detailed and comprehensive prompt, showing you how you can do the same on your own… or you can just keep using this one. Give it a try!

If you have any great prompts or ideas, please share! Send me a note at [email protected].

Sometimes I encounter articles that I feel all college counselors and people in our industry should read. This past week, I encountered two such non-tech articles and wanted to share them. Take a look:

Enjoy the rest of the week, and happy counseling,

Jeff