The field of natural language processing (NLP) aims at getting computers to perform useful and interesting tasks with human language. This course introduces students to the 3 pillars underlying modern NLP: probabilistic language models, simple neural networks with a focus on gradient based learning, and vector-based meaning representations in the form of word embeddings. At the end of the course, students will be able to implement and analyze probabilistic language models based on N-grams, text classifiers using logistic regression and gradient-based learning, and vector-based approaches to word meaning and text classification.

This course can be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s MS in Data Science or MS in Computer Science degrees offered on the Coursera platform. These fully accredited graduate degrees offer targeted courses, short 8-week sessions, and pay-as-you-go tuition. Admission is based on performance in three preliminary courses, not academic history. CU degrees on Coursera are ideal for recent graduates or working professionals. Learn more: MS in Data Science: https://www.coursera.org/degrees/master-of-science-data-science-boulder MS in Computer Science: https://coursera.org/degrees/ms-computer-science-boulder