Preliminary course information, Fall 2023
Fall 2023 prerequisites
- Strong programming skills are important. Three semesters of programming classes are strongly recommended (e.g., completion of CS3110). CS2110 may suffice if you individually could have successfully and easily completed the assignments by yourself.
- Python experience. Pytorch experience (as through CS4780) not required but some students report it being very helpful.
- Comfort with elementary probability.
- Clear understanding of matrix and vector operations.
- Familiarity with differentiation.
Enrollment
- The enrollment policy is stated in the following roster note:
[Pre-]enrollment limited to CS students only. All others [i.e., non-CS students] should add themselves to the waitlist [on Student Center] during add/drop [around the beginning of the fall semester]. See these enrollment webpages for more details: - If you are currently on the waitlist or otherwise trying to get into the course:
- You do not need to contact the professor or course staff! We currently expect that everyone who is interested in the class will make it off the waitlist! It's just that, even if there is space, as detailed in the CIS waitlist FAQ page https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courseinfo/enrollment/cs-waitlist-faqs, it might take a little while for you to be emailed a PIN (from the people who manage CIS course enrollment) that would allow you to officially enroll.
- You are allowed to attend the first lectures even if you are not enrolled in the class (as long as there are physical seats available).
- If you are having trouble joining the waitlist:
- Sorry, but do try following the directions linked above carefully. There were many non-CIS students who were able to join it, but missed something in the directions the first time around.
- If you still have problems, please contact the help email address listed in the enrollment pages. (The CS4740 prof and course staff can't help you, I'm afraid.)
Related courses
See https://nlp.cornell.edu/courses/. In particular,
- In Fall 2023there are new courses
- new! INFO 4350 “Conversations and Information” [roster entry - click on the syllabus link for updated info]
- new! INFO 4940/6940 LEC 004 “How LLMs work, their potential and limitations”. [roster entry]. At one point, the prereqs were "significant machine learning/statistics experience equivalent to INFO 3950, ORIE 3120, or CS ML classes"
- LING4434/CS4745 “Computational linguistics II”
- CS6740 “Advanced language technologies”
- CS6741 “Topics in natural language processing and machine learning”.
- In Spring 2024, CS/IS4300 “Language and information”, LING 4424/CS4744 “Computational linguistics I”, CS5740 at Techonly “Natural Language Processing”, “CS6741 “Topics in natural language processing and machine learning”, and CS 6742/IS6300 “Natural language processing and social interaction” will be offered.
Workload/grading
- 4 programming assignments(with possible partial milestones) (can be done in pairs) = 17% each;
- Expect each of the roughly four connected programming assignments to take tens of hours, although this time is distributed over multiple weeks; to require writing code to massage raw-ish data into different formats and other accessory functions as well as to implement core algorithms; and to necessitate much independent examination of documentation.
- Expect each of the roughly four connected programming assignments to take tens of hours, although this time is distributed over multiple weeks; to require writing code to massage raw-ish data into different formats and other accessory functions as well as to implement core algorithms; and to necessitate much independent examination of documentation.
- one evening midterm, Thu Oct 12, 2023= 16%;
- one in-person final = 16%;
- but,sincethe exams test conceptual, individual-level knowledge, to receive a C- or above in the course, students must receive at least a C- on both exams.
Assignments for CS5740
The only difference between 5740 and the undergrad versions is that the assignments for students in 5740 will have some additional components compared to CS 4740, typically involving reading one or more related research papers. Scores on these components are converted to "satisfactory", "borderline", and "unsatisfactory". If a student receives two "borderline"s or one "unsatisfactory" among the four homeworks, we reserve the right to lower the student's letter grade as computed for 4740 by the equivalent of a "level", for example, from a B to a B-.
Contact info
Contact Prof. Lee via intro-nlp-prof@cornell.edu.
Website from last year
It may be useful to check out last year’s website, https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs4740/2022fa/