Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Department: Computer Science

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): COMP 341 OR COMP 441

Description: This course provides an in-depth introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP), a field at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics that focuses on the interaction between computers and human language. As NLP technologies continue to transform industries—from chatbots to virtual assistants—this course equips students with the foundational knowledge and practical skills necessary to understand and develop NLP applications. Throughout the semester, students will explore key concepts and methodologies in NLP, such as text preprocessing, language modeling, and deep learning approaches. This course will cover a wide range of NLP topics, including Tokenization, Vectorization, Word Embedding, Part-of-Speech Tagging, Named Entity Recognition, Text Classification, Language Modeling, Machine Translation, Question Answering, Deep Learning for NLP, Transformers, Large Language Models, and Advanced Topics in NLP (e.g., Interpretability, Robustness, Fairness). Students will engage in hands-on projects using popular NLP libraries such as NLTK, SpaCy, and Hugging Face Transformers. They will learn to preprocess text data, implement various NLP algorithms, and evaluate model performance using standard metrics. The course will also include discussions on the ethical implications of NLP, including issues related to bias, privacy, and the societal impact of language technologies. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for COMP 484 if student has credit for COMP 584.