How to Climb
Start to finish, in order. Four or five hours, spread over as long as you like.
The Ladder
Sixteen exercises on this site. Where the work happens.
The write-up
Two pages, written once, at the end. The only thing you turn in.
The application
A short survey in the Ambassador Canvas course. Your write-up goes in it. A person reads it.
Before you start
One minute.
- Open whatever AI you use. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, any of them. The free versions are fine.
As you climb
Sixteen times, at your own pace. There is no schedule.
- Do the exercise on the Ladder page. Copy the grey starter box into your AI, and replace anything in [square brackets] with your own. Answer the question in the right-hand column for yourself before moving on.
- Jot a line if you want to. What surprised you, and what it got wrong, in a sentence. The worksheet (PDF) has a line for each exercise, or use your own notes. Nobody collects it; it is there so you can remember the climb when you write it up.
When all sixteen are done
About an hour, once.
- Write it up. 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, and close with a line on how you used AI to write the write-up itself. Name the exercises. It is not a recap of each rung; it is your account of the whole climb.
Then apply
About ten minutes. Only if you are applying to be an Ambassador.
- Join the AI Ambassadors course in Canvas with your CSUN login. The application is in there, called AI Ambassador Application.
- Paste in your write-up. Canvas saves as you go, so you can stop and come back. Write it in Word or Google Docs first all the same.
- Submit. A person reads it.
Not applying? Steps 1 to 4 are the whole thing. The Ladder is open to anyone at CSUN and finishing it is worth having on its own. Only the last three steps belong to the Ambassador application.