CS 5624: Natural Language Processing

Course description

This course provides an in-depth exploration of Natural Language Processing (NLP) with a focus on the principles and techniques behind the development of large language models (LLMs). Topics include foundational NLP concepts, neural language models, transformer architectures, pretraining and fine-tuning techniques, prompt engineering, LLM alignment, evaluation methods, model efficiency and adaptability, advanced reasoning, tool-use LLMs, LLM agents, etc. Students will gain practical experience through coding assignments and a project, preparing them to design and evaluate state-of-the-art LLMs for real-world applications.

Prerequisites No prerequisites are required for this course; however, the following could be helpful:

• Familiarity with basic machine learning concepts
• Familiarity with basic statistical concepts
• Proficiency in Python programming

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• Time: Tuesday & Thursday 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
• Location: Derring Hall 3081
• Contact: Students should ask all course-related questions on Piazza. For personal matters or emergencies, please email all of us at cs5624instructors@gmail.com. For anonymous questions or comments, please use this form.

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