With eyes glued on their screens and hardworking hands that serve as shimmer of hope, some college dropouts face challenges in their coming-of-age time. In era of AI, it soon became their “one call away.”

I always thought that having a college degree will help you land a job, help you financially or to finally achieve the most-awaited dreams in your life. That’s how our parents told us to. But what about people who pursue their dreams without finishing their studies yet successfully achieved it? There is this contradicting thought inside of me that reflected if that what does make a person successful in life. It’s not just the degree, fancy cars, house or what. As for other people who stopped their studies and find work, that’s indeed challenging for them since they’re on their own.

From recent interviews with students from Quezon Province who dropped out recently because of personal problems, I found their stories truly inspiring and challenging that can motivate young people who are struggling in times of need.

First, as for Gerard Dañes, I sent him questions of google forms as he preferred it rather than face-to-face, letting him alone answer it within his time. Knowing that he is an introvert since he was a former publication staff of mine, he comfortably expressed his desires in written form. Then, I had Google Meet interview with Lawrence Acodili, who has this strong confident aura and exhibits a visionary persona at his age. They are one to three years younger than me yet they endured a lot for their age.

Behind their inspiring stories, AI became an integral part of their lives. But how? Offering them a gateway of opportunities.

Gerard Danes (formerly 1st year Entertainment and Multimedia Computing) and Lawrence Acodili (3rd year Computer Science major in Data Science) are among Youtube content creators who have different specializations in their fields. Dañes focuses on animation as freelance artist while Acodili serves as a content strategist for his clients, helping them to flourish their businesses.

Personal challenges

In life, challenges are endless for everyone. It only takes to solve one at a time without pressure. As for them, family problems become a contributing factor to dropping out of college.

When Gerard’s dad lost his job, Gerard had no choice but to stop his studies and find ways to sustain a living. Since his artists skills were all he got, he used this a way of profit such as selling art prints, keychains and even drawing for people in public events using paper and pencil.

“Anything with the use of my abilities, skills, and talents. I decided to put them into good use,” Gerard said. To find more ways of income, his recent Youtube channel soon increased audience as he shared his stories with arts and animation.

Meanwhile, Lawrence notices his home and school routine at the same time family problem which became contributing factors to his dropout. As I listened to his narratives, he has these big dreams of his that he sees himself working with a company, not working for a company.

Helpless and lost in hope, students sacrifice studies for a while in pursuit of work opportunities with the help of AI. Finding work in the job market is like a needle in the haystack, but when AI enters today’s world, it became their intangible magnet to attract clients and audience.

AI as the helping hand

If you don’t know where to seek help, AI is your friend. That’s how Gerard and Lawrence used ChatGPT as an AI tool for their content creations.

AI offers multipurpose features that helped majority of people to make work efficiently. Content creators like Gerard in animation, he used AI to organize his scripts. “When I write my scripts on YouTube, I would take those written outputs on to AI to organize and label each section of scenes and fix certain mistakes of my grammar,” he said.

When it comes to audio editing and improvisation, he uses AI enhancements and podcast.adobe.com to adjust human voice and removal of its background noise. For Gerard, as an aspiring animator, he makes sure to document his processes and brings out his best creative output so far.

Talking to Lawrence Acodili during the online interview opened me in a different perspective as he gives a glimpse of his life after college. He was mature for his age especially when he shared experiences on client relationships and business rapport.

Being a content strategist and video editor, Lawrence used right questions to ask AI to get the results he wanted and apply to his content ideas. “If you really want an effective content, you really need to learn how to use Chat GPT and any AI prompts which are available out there,” he suggested.

On his video editing process, he relies on AI. “There is what you called AI cut-out so it cuts out the ripped (clips), automatically removing the pauses especially, breathing sounds and letting alone takes time.” This feature eases video editors to work smoothly.

Garnering his work experiences with his clients, he used voice to influence other people.

Better results attract an audience

Their work improved a lot ever since they applied AI tools like ChatGPT and AI enhancements to cut production time short. AI helped Gerard’s way of storytelling in animation and voice acting gigs. Speech improvisation, noise removal, time efficiency. It takes two birds in one stone. resulting in smooth voice overs and performances. Moreover, his Youtube channel increased audience and subscribers.

As for Lawrence, with AI assistance, his content strategies helped numbers of business clients as they expand the businesses. He gets to have opportunities to meet his international clients personally and develop connections with them.

Seeing their hard work pays off, I believe that their efforts will get them to the best destinations.

In the end, upon learning their AI application in their works, AI is their key to their long-term and short-term goals. Regardless of whether to have a degree or not, the success of finding a job depends on the person itself. Vast AI assisted them in the working process as wide of opportunities welcome for them to grow and build career for themselves.

If you want to explore beyond what can you do, use AI. Not entirely, but in moderation.