Ep. 20 Make College Great Again? Nostalgia, AI, and Academic Anxiety

In this episode of Unfixed, Nik and Zach take on a difficult but necessary conversation about nostalgia in higher education. Using real media headlines, faculty experiences, and their own teaching histories, they explore how AI panic taps into a deeper longing for a pre-pandemic, pre-ChatGPT past that may never have been as stable as we remember. The discussion unpacks what nostalgia is, why it’s so powerful right now, and how scapegoating AI can obscure long-standing challenges around reading, writing, and motivation. Rather than a call to “go back,” this episode walks the line between insight and wake-up—arguing that AI often reveals what’s already broken and, in some cases, opens space to fix it.

Zach Justus and Nik Janos, Inside Higher Ed, No, the Pre-AI Era Was Not That Great

Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, What Happens after A.I. Destroys College Writing

New York Magazine, Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College

Lindsay McKenzie, 2018, Inside Higher Ed, Learning Tool or Cheating Aid?

Raphael, The School of Athens

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You can find the full show notes and our writing at meltsintoair.org