Courses
Here is a list of courses and programs at UMass to study the overlapping areas of natural language processing, computational linguistics, and cultural analytics, taught by NLP affiliated faculty. Some have links to syllabi or websites from some, but not necessary all, previous offerings; if you'd like to know future availability, ask instructors or see department websites, such as the CICS course offering plan.
- COMPSCI 485/490A: Applications of Natural Language Processing. [F24, S24, F23, F22, F21, F20]
- COMPSCI 585: Introduction to Natural Language Processing. [19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 09, 07, 04, 96]
- COMPSCI 685: Advanced Natural Language Processing. [S23, S22, S21, F20, S20, S19 (690D), S18 (690N), S17 (690N)]
- COMPSCI 446: Search Engines.
- COMPSCI 546: Applied Information Retrieval.
- COMPSCI 646: Information Retrieval.
- COMPSCI 692L: NLP Seminar. [S25, F24, S24, F23, S23]
- COMPSCI 696DS: Industry Mentorship Program.
- COMPSCI 791U: Advanced Topics in Information Retrieval.
- INFO 490CA/690CA: Introduction to Social and Cultural Analytics.
- LING 409/509: Introduction to Computational Linguistics.
- LING 492B: Computational Linguistics: Use and Meaning. This is intended to be taken after Ling 509. [20, 15]
- LING 592B: Speech Processing.
- LING 692C: Cognitive Modeling (aka Computational Psycholinguistics).
- LING 797C: Computational Phonology.
- POLSCI 797TA / DACSS 697D: Special Topics - Text as Data.
- COMM 497DB: Survey/Digital Behavioral Data.
Degree Programs
These courses can be taken as part of a number of different degree programs at UMass. We list several below that are an especially good fit for studying NLP and related topics.
Undergraduate:
- CICS offers several undergraduate majors, including both Computer Science and Informatics.
- Linguistics, in collaboration with CICS, offers a degree in Computational Linguistics. The normal Linguistics major may be appropriate as well.
- NLP and NLP-related coursework can of course be included in many other majors, though be aware that availability may be an issue for certain courses.
Masters:
- Computer Science MS program in CICS. See also its Data Science concentration.
- Data Analytics and Computational Social Science Program in SBS.
PhD:
- Computer Science PhD program in CICS.
- Linguistics PhD program (see the computational linguistics research group).
- If you are considering multiple departments for PhD studies, make sure to research how the structure, content, and outcomes of study differ between departments.
Course Enrollments
Many students from a variety of departments, across humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering, and other Five Colleges, have taken NLP and related courses at UMass. Depending on the particular department and course, at times there can be enrollment constraints; interested students can contact instructors if they have questions.
For COMPSCI and INFO courses, these CICS webpages on undergraduate enrollments and graduate enrollments may be relevant.