Open to everyone at CSUN, at your own pace. The Ambassador program is for students.
Welcome. The Nazarian College is looking for students who know how to use AI well and can share what they know with other students. Employers now expect graduates to have these skills. This is a chance to build them somewhere nothing is at stake — and, if you are selected, to earn a $200 gift card after you lead your first session.
You apply by successfully climbing the Ladder: sixteen short exercises, four or five hours, on your own, nothing graded. Do the exercises first, write second. Sixteen exercises, then one short write-up at the end. That is all you turn in.
Why Ambassadors? Some of you use AI every day. Some of you have been told for two years that using it is cheating, and are no longer sure what’s allowed. The Ladder starts easy and fun on purpose. Gradually it brings you up a series of levels, making sure that your judgment is exercised at each one. This is what employers are asking for.
Ambassadors go one step further and help other students learn it. Two reasons to teach it: it spreads an important skill to students who would never start on their own, and teaching something is the fastest way to learn it properly yourself.
This is a business college, and the judgment is a business skill. Three quarters of small businesses already use AI — and three quarters of their owners say they need more training to use it well. The tools arrived faster than anyone learned to use them, and the smallest firms are furthest behind. That gap is the opportunity, whether you are joining a company or starting one. The numbers are here.
How the starters work. Most exercises give you a starter in a grey box. Copy the whole thing into whatever AI you use — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, any of them — and replace anything in [square brackets] with your own. The brackets are placeholders, not part of the prompt.
Any AI chatbot works — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot. Free versions are fine. Switching between them is fine too.
The starters are a floor, not a ceiling. Every exercise gives you something to paste so you never face a blank box. Swap in your own material and rewrite the wording — a starter you changed is worth more than one you pasted clean.
Each rung ends with a self-check. If the answer is no, repeat the rung’s last exercise with new material before moving on. Nobody sees your answer.
| # | Exercise | The question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Rung 1 — PlayNothing on the line. Build fluency. | ||
| 01 | Turn whatever you are reading into song lyrics Turn this into song lyrics in the style of any artist I name: [paste anything you’re reading] | How good was it — and what did it get wrong, drop, or make up? |
| 02 | Make a concept explain something you actually do A job, a team, a club, a side hustle, caring for someone, a sport — anything you do often enough to know well.Explain [a concept you just read about] using this: [say what you do] | Does the concept actually fit what you do, or only sound like it does? |
| 03 | Teach an idea from your major to a skeptic Anything you have covered in a class this term will do. It does not have to be your own idea.You’re a skeptic. I’ll pitch you an idea from my major — push back hard. | Did the idea hold up under real pushback, or crumble on contact? |
| Before you climb on: could you start a conversation with an AI about anything, without a script? | ||
| Rung 2 — DirectYou steer. The answer depends on you. Every exercise has a starter — paste it, then change it. Editing the starter is part of the exercise. | ||
| 04 | Make it argue against itself Answer this: [your question]. Then write the strongest rebuttal to your own answer — actually try to beat it, no hedging.” Then: “Which of the two is right? Commit to one. | Which side actually won? |
| 05 | Rewrite the prompt, watch the answer change [paste your prompt]” Then: “Same question, but [one change — shorter / for a skeptic / no examples / assume I disagree]. | What did your edit cause — and what stubbornly did not move? |
| 06 | Tell it how to talk to you — then check whether it listened Find your AI’s personalization or custom-instructions settings — every major chatbot has them, though they sit in a different place in each. Paste this in as standing instructions, then add two of your own. Tell me when I’m wrong, plainly. Skip the compliments and the preamble. If I’m asking the wrong question, say so. Do not soften bad news. Then redo exercise 04 with them switched on. | What actually changed — and what did it keep doing anyway? |
| 07 | Have it quiz you until you find your gaps Quiz me on [topic], one question at a time. After each answer, tell me what I got wrong and go harder there. Don’t move on until I’ve missed something. | Where did your own understanding actually run out — and what did you do about it? |
| Before you climb on: could you say what your prompt and your standing instructions changed — and what neither of them moved? | ||
| Rung 3 — ApplyReal work of your own. And the first sign of thinning. | ||
| 08 | Rehearse a hard conversation Play [the person — a client, a co-founder, a manager, a supplier]. I need to tell them [the hard thing]. React the way they actually would, including badly. Don’t make it easy on me.” Then: “What did I avoid saying? | How did you do — and what did you avoid saying? Judge your own performance, not the AI’s script. |
| 09 | Drill into a question you actually care about I want to go deep on [your question]. Ask what I already believe, then push one level deeper each turn. Stop when you start repeating yourself and say so. | Was the extra depth real, or just more words? |
| 10 | Turn something you have written into a slide deck Turn this into 5 slides — title plus 3 bullets each: [paste your writing, a pitch, or a proposal].” Then: “List what you had to cut. | What did the deck flatten — and was what got cut the filler, or the argument? |
| Before you climb on: could you point to the spot where the AI stopped helping and you took over? | ||
| Rung 4 — InterrogateExamine the limits you just found. | ||
| 11 | Compare two AIs on the same question [your question] — ask this in two different chatbots, then paste one answer into the other:” Then: “Another AI answered this way: [paste]. Where do you disagree, and which disagreement matters? | Where do they disagree — and which disagreement matters? |
| 12 | Have it argue the side you reject I believe [your position]. Make the strongest case against it — the version that would worry someone who actually holds my view. No both-sides summary. | Was the case against you stronger than you expected — and did it move you? |
| 13 | Mark the line: its recommendation, your judgment Given [your situation — a price, a hire, a launch, a vendor choice], give me your recommendation labeled RECOMMENDATION. Then list every judgment call inside it that only I can make, labeled MINE. | Exactly where did the AI stop and you start? This is the point of the rung. |
| Before you climb on: could you name a disagreement between two AIs that matters, and make the call yourself? | ||
| Rung 5 — VerifyIndependence. Check it, then check the check. | ||
| 14 | Fact-check the AI — then check the checker. For a number it computed, the first check is redoing the math. List every factual claim and number in this: [paste]. For each, say how you’d verify it.” Then: “In a NEW chat: Check this verification independently — redo the math yourself: [paste]. | Was the second pass any more trustworthy than the first? |
| 15 | Trace a claim to its original source For this claim — [paste] — find the original source, not a summary of it. Title, author, year, and where I’d find it. If there isn’t one, say so plainly. | Does the source exist, and does it say what the claim says? “I couldn’t find a source” is a passing answer. |
| 16 | Assess source credibility and publication bias Here’s a source: [paste it or its link — a market report, a vendor white paper, an industry statistic]. Who published it, who funded it, what do they gain if I believe it, and what would they leave out? | Does the source’s credibility match how the AI treated it — or was the AI too trusting? |
| Before you climb on: could you tell someone when to trust this and when not to? That is the top of the ladder. | ||
Nothing here depends on a class. Where an exercise needs material, use whatever you are working on or reading. Climb the rungs in order — each one assumes the one below it.
One thing is written up, once, at the end: a short account of your climb. Two pages, in your own words. What you tried, which exercises surprised you and how, and what you would now hand to AI without a second thought and what you would not let it near. Name one moment where it told you something and you decided it was wrong. Then, at the end, say how you used AI to write this — which tool, for what, and what is yours. Be specific — name the exercises. Anyone who climbed can write it in an hour, and nobody who did not can write it at all. A person reads it.
The application lives in the AI Ambassadors course in Canvas. Join it with your CSUN login, then paste your write-up into the application inside — about ten minutes, and Canvas saves as you go. The full walk-through is here.
Faculty and staff are welcome to climb the Ladder; the application itself is for students.