Topics in Data Science Methodologies
CDS DS 593
Spring 2026 Topic: Theory and Applications of Large Language Models. In this course, students will become savvy consumers and sophisticated developers of LLMs and related tooling. We will start by orienting ourselves to the history of natural language processing and the current state of AI tools, which students will learn to critically evaluate and use extensively throughout the course. Students will develop a deep intuition for LLM concepts including attention and transformer architectures, sampling, and search, and will build small models from scratch. They will then apply pre-trained LLMs to solve real-world problems, working with advanced techniques including fine-tuning, prompt engineering, RAG, and AI agents. Throughout, the course emphasizes bias, safety, and responsible deployment. Through reflections, labs, and projects, students will demonstrate learning and develop a professional portfolio.
FALL 2026 Schedule
| Section | Instructor | Location | Schedule | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Dak Albab | CGS 527 | TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm | Fall 2026 Topic - Privacy-Conscious Computer Systems: Are you worried about web services abusing your data or someone observing your web search history? Do you wrap your phone (or yourself) in tin foil to protect your information? Do you wish to live in a world where web applications are privacy-conscious? Join us while we learn about the computer systems that power up the web and how we can redesign them to better protect users’ privacy. We will look at state of the art datacenter systems for GDPR compliance, compilers and runtimes for automatic policy enforcement, and cryptographic tools for private machine learning and web search. Along the way, we will learn about different normative perspectives on privacy, how users perceive it, and what challenges data scientists and web developers face while striving to achieve it! Undergrad Pre-reqs - DS210 and DS310. Students should also be comfortable programming in one systems programming language such as C, C++, Rust, or Go and familiarity with basic computer organization and/or data systems is encouraged. |
FALL 2026 Schedule
| Section | Instructor | Location | Schedule | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A2 | Dak Albab | EPC 208 | W 9:05 am-9:55 am |
Note that this information may change at any time. Please visit the MyBU Student Portal for the most up-to-date course information.
