MALVERN, PA — Penn State Great Valley is helping expand Penn State’s online professional master’s program in artificial intelligence into two tracks, broadening graduate-level AI education for working professionals with different levels of programming experience.
The program now offers an Applied and Generative AI Option for technically oriented professionals without a programming-intensive background and an AI Engineering Option for students seeking to develop and deploy artificial intelligence and machine-learning systems.
Great Valley engineering faculty helped establish the original online AI master’s degree with Penn State World Campus and are shaping the expanded program. The collaboration extended the Malvern campus’s graduate AI instruction to students who could not relocate to attend in person.
More than 90 students have completed the online degree since its first graduates finished in 2023. Graduates span nearly two dozen states and two continents.
The expansion reflects differing demands among professionals adopting AI. Some students need the technical skills to build and deploy systems, while others are seeking to apply AI within organizations, manage workplace adoption or make decisions about emerging technologies.
“Low-code and no-code tools open that door by enabling more professionals, not only specialized programmers, to apply AI in meaningful ways,” said Raghu Sangwan, director of engineering programs at Penn State Great Valley.
The Applied and Generative AI track emphasizes low- and no-code approaches to using AI in organizational settings. The AI Engineering track is more programming-intensive and focuses on developing and deploying AI and machine-learning systems.
The degree initially attracted working engineers seeking technical AI skills they could apply on the job. Coursework incorporated industry problems and live data sets, while subsequent graduates have applied AI in areas including manufacturing and health care.
Penn State Great Valley is a graduate-only campus in Malvern offering master’s degrees, graduate certificates and professional development programs in business, education, engineering and information technology. Its offerings include three graduate programs focused on artificial intelligence.
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