Opinion: UCLA must teach students how to use AI as proper tool for learning

Claude is an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, available at claude.ai. It can answer questions, write and edit text, summarize documents, analyze data, write and explain code, and engage in multi-turn conversations. Claude is designed with a focus on safety and helpfulness, and is used in education for tutoring, writing feedback, and research assistance.

Claude offers a free tier at claude.ai that allows limited conversations with the Claude model. Claude Pro, a paid subscription, unlocks more messages, access to larger context windows (for long documents), and priority access during peak times. The free tier is sufficient for occasional student use; heavy users benefit from a Pro subscription.

Claude and ChatGPT are both capable large language models. Claude is often preferred for longer-form writing tasks and nuanced analysis; ChatGPT has a larger ecosystem of plugins and integrations. Both are useful for students. Claude's 200,000-token context window (Pro) enables processing of entire textbooks or research papers in a single session.

Provide clear, specific prompts with relevant context. For studying, try: "I am preparing for a biology exam on cell division. Quiz me with five multiple-choice questions, then explain any I get wrong." Longer, more detailed instructions produce better results with Claude than with older models, so including relevant background and desired format improves output quality.