5 Free Courses for Mastering LLMs

Without any doubt, Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as one of the biggest AI breakthroughs in recent years: they excel in understanding and generating human-like text, making them versatile for a wide range of applications. Learning LLMs’ foundations and practical nuances may sound daunting to many, but this article is here to help. Keep reading to find out!

Below, we present five free up-to-date courses to kickstart your journey into mastering LLMs.

1. Introduction to Large Language Models by Google

This introductory-level course combines LLM foundations and the basics of prompt engineering at no cost: suitable for both end users of LLM applications and those interested in a gentle introduction to the technology underlying these models. Through a 30-minute learning journey, this course is ideal for newbies to LLMs who want to start with easy-to-digest content before moving on to deeper resources.

2. AI for Educators by Microsoft

This 4-hour learning path has been created by Microsoft to explore the major AI trends for education. LLMs have a front seat in the entire course syllabus, along with an introduction to Generative AI models they are based on, prompt engineering, and responsible AI practices. A balanced introduction suitable for data scientists, AI/ML engineers, and general users interested in LLMs and how they can add value to their daily work.

3. Cohere’s LLM University

For those looking to dig deeper into the technical side of LLMs, this compilation of resources at LLM University is a good choice. It delves into text generation and representation, semantic search engines, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and more, making it an attractive choice upon completion of other introductory courses listed in this article. The final part of the course explores how to put the concepts and techniques learned into practice in Amazon’s AWS.

4. Anthropic Prompt Engineering Courses

Prompt engineering is perhaps the most important skill to learn by end users of LLMs to optimize daily tasks and use cases. Rather than a single course, this is a set of five short asynchronous courses compiled in a Github repository to master prompt engineering skills by harnessing the Claude AI tool through its API. Prompt engineering, real-world prompting, and prompt evaluations are some of the key topics covered, along with tutorials built on cloud platforms like AWS and Google Cloud.

5. Large Language Model Agents

This course, co-organized by UC Berkeley and Google DeepMind, covers both the foundations of LLMs and a deeper exploration of agent-based development of LLM applications. Lectures are synchronous and take place on certain dates, but you can sign up anytime for upcoming editions open periodically.

The course offers a certificate of completion upon submitting and passing an assignment, but it can be also audited for free.

Wrapping Up

This article listed five insightful courses to learn about LLMs at no cost, ranging from introductory concepts accessible to everyone to intermediate topics at a more technical level, as well as relevant end-user topics like prompt engineering. By combining several of these courses, you’ll equip yourself with a pretty decent background in this enthralling area of AI.