Experimenting with ChatGPT in STEM Courses: Faculty and Students' Perspectives.

We describe an experiment using ChatGPT in an Engineering Economics course at Texas Tech University - Costa Rica. Students must write two essays on important societal economic topics. There is always a guarded suspicion from the faculty perspective that students will attempt to cheat to avoid doing the necessary background material reading, and in the actual writing of the essays. The experiment consisted of "relaxing the rules" that students had to follow for the first essay. The use of ChatGPT was allowed at the student's discretion, but if chosen it should be clearly stated, and the student's opinion and perspective on the validity and correctness of the ChatGPT generated essay should be added. Poor use of the AI tool was evidenced in some cases by the perfunctory use of, e.g., "I agree with what ChatGPT wrote" (paraphrasing). Other cases showed a more pedagogical use, where students would state reasons and disagree with ChatGPT, and others would use it as an additional aid to comprehend better the issue to arrive at a personal position on it. From the student's perspective, in the best of cases ChatGPT is viewed as just another useful tool to help them learn faster and more effectively.