Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree Review 2024: Become an Expert in NLP

The proliferation of technology has created a seamless collaboration between machines and humans, with machine learning, massive understanding of statistics, text representations, and algorithms, called Natural Language Processing. 

The field of natural language processing is now popular. NLP has many different uses.

Natural Language Processing courses and programs are everywhere, leaving numerous options for you to handpick the finest training option to excel in NLP.  

However, there is one thing confusing?

How to choose the right program that covers every concept along with specialized practical training methodologies to help you ace in NLP as a career?

As an answer to this question, we have done in-depth research and finally found the right NLP course to benefit your career in NLP, which will be explored in this Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree Review.

This Udacity NLP review includes genuine information and inferences based on the detailed research about the NLP Nanodegree program by Udacity.

If you buy the course through the links in this article, we can earn some affiliate commission.  This helps us to keep this blog up and running for your benefit.

Overview of Udacity NLP Nanodegree program

If you are keen on enhancing your Machine Learning and Deep Learning skills with the incorporation of Speech recognition techniques and Natural Language processing, the Udacity NLP program is an ideal option you can go for.

With the program, you can use speech tagging, machine translation, and other NLP techniques to solve real-world challenges or applications. 

The program encompasses 3 courses and 3 projects, with the opportunity to demonstrate your key learnings with the intensive project outcomes. 

The projects you complete become an integral part of your career portfolio to let you exhibit your mastery in NLP to the hiring companies.

What is the scope of Natural Language Processing in AI and ML?

Huge organizations play a major role in the NLP market with the adoption of deep learning, Machine learning algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence mechanisms.

NLP is a branch of AI that helps machines and computers to understand or decode the way human beings write and speak, to enable natural conversations.

NLP makes sense of the text and automates tasks such as spellcheck, translation, and topic classification, thereby empowering every firm with Virtual assistance, chatbots, prediction, prediction accuracy, etc., marking a powerful scope for the field of study in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence segments.

What is Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree?

The Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree enables computers to understand, operate and manipulate the human language with necessary NLP skills.

The course lets you build models based on real data and get practical exposure through speech recognition, Machine translation, sentiment analysis, etc.

Through the personalized course, you can get technical mentor support and timely feedback on the projects from experienced reviewers. 

Apart from the feedback, you can also experience the benefits of unlimited project submissions, practical tips, industry use cases, and various resources to improve your NLP skills. 

The course can best suit the aspirants who have a strong desire to build a career in the Natural Language processing field, and the NLP professionals who wish to nurture their existing skills with adherence to the advanced technologies.

Features of Udacity NLP Nanodegree Program

If you wish to know further about the program, here you go. 

The program comprises real-world projects offered by industry experts, and highly immersive content being developed with the collaborations of top-tier firms.

The technical mentors are available to guide you on learning and keep you on track with motivation.

You get the benefits of personal career coaching and career services, along with the interview preparation advice, resume, and the comfort of a flexible custom learning program.

You can also learn at your own pace and hit personal targets with monthly payments.

Prerequisites for Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree Program

To be successful with this Nanodegree program, you need to have the following:

• Intermediate to advanced level of Python experience, familiarity with Object-Oriented programming, ability to write nested for loops, understand the code written by the others.

• Familiarity with statistics and probability.
• Knowledge about basic shell scripting
• Average knowledge of Machine learning techniques
• Knowledge of differential calculus and linear algebra
• Any learning or viewing experience with the learning frameworks such as Keras, Pytorch, and Tensorflow.

What to do if you do not meet the criteria to enrol?

You need not worry if the aforementioned criteria are not allowing you to enroll in this course. 

To join the Nanodegree program, you can first take up any Deep learning course from Udacity equivalent to the NLP Nanodegree program. 

You should be also able to properly communicate and maintain professional fluency in both spoken and written English.

There are various courses from Udacity like Introduction to Machine Learning, Data Science, Programming, Data Analyst, Artificial Intelligence Programming, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning Engineer program, where you can choose the ideal course to develop the required skills and take up the Udacity NLP Nanodegree course.

Check this out -> Udacity Machine Learning Nanodegree Review 2022: My Thoughts on Machine Learning from Udacity

What is the cost of the Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree?

So, What about the cost of the Udacity NLP Nanodegree program? 

Firstly, the price can vary since the duration utilized to take up the course can be different. Udacity has a clever way of pricing the courses, and the cost depends on the number of months you have access to them. 

The overall program costs around 1077 USD, if completed within the stipulated time of 3 months. When you have complete access to the course, the pricing comes to 359 USD per month. If you wish to bundle up the access, then the price can come down with a slight discount of about 15%. 

If you are a quick learner, then the estimated time required to complete the course is 3 months, at 10-15 hours every week.

What is the duration of Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree?

The Natural Language Processing Nanodegree program consists of content and curriculum with support for three projects. 

A student can complete the entire NLP Nanodegree program in 3 months, by working about 10 hours every week. 

The projects will be reviewed by the reviewer panel in Udacity and timely feedback will be provided. If you don’t clear the project, the project’s re-submission can be made till you pass.

Syllabus of the Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree

The program has 3 courses and 3 projects with ample hands-on experience you can build from, to mold into an NLP expert. Here are the course curriculum details: 

Course 1: Introduction to Natural Language Processing

You get to learn text processing fundamentals, explore machine learning techniques in sentiment analysis and learn to develop a speech tagging model.

The module includes core concepts, application building with IBM Watson, Text processing, Speech tagging and parts, Hidden Markov models, algorithms, etc.

Course 2: Computing with Natural Language

With the course, you can learn advanced techniques like deep learning, word embeddings, and building the translation model with the recurrent architectures of neural networks.

You get to learn how to extract the features from the text, use embedding algorithms, like Glove, and Word2Vec uses deep learning models, machine translation, sentiment analysis, image captioning, text summarization, and information systems.

Course 3: Communicating with Natual Language

This course deals with the voice user interface techniques to transform speech to text and text to speech. You can also learn how to build a speech recognition model with deep neural networks.

The section comprises Intro to voice user, Alexa Skills with Amazon’s API, AWS, and Speech Recognition.

While the above courses cover all the necessary NLP skills an NLP professional should be well aware of and the real-time concepts, the projects listed below throw light on the hands-on expertise and skills required to gain industry-relevant experience.

Project 1:

Part of Speech tagging 

With the project, you can learn text processing techniques that let you develop a part of the speech tagging model and work using a simple lookup table. 

With a Python package, you can learn to create and train taggers, by using a hidden Markov model, where you learn to compare the performances of these models effectively.

Project 2:

Machine translation 

This project helps you to build an in-depth neural network as a part of the translation pipeline for machines. 

The pipeline, when completed, returns French translation for English input. You can also explore and compare the performance of several Neural Network architectures. 

You can use the project to build the deep learning models to enable text translation.

Project 3:

Speech recognizer

In this project, you can develop a deep neural network as a part of the ASR pipeline, ie. Automatic Speech Recognition Pipeline. 

The model can transform audio to feature representations, to turn them into transcribed text. By the end of this project, you will be able to investigate the dataset and use them to successfully evaluate your models. 

Projects are the most exciting part of the entire program, they link you to professional expertise with hands-on expertise. Won’t it be interesting when you can learn and gain experience at the same time?

Also Read: My Thoughts: Udacity Deep Learning Nanodegree 2022

Can I become an AI or ML Engineer after completing this Nanodegree?

AI and Machine learning jobs have taken a huge leap by about 75% over the past four years and keep growing ahead, being a perfect choice that fulfills your desire for a high-paying job. 

The lucrative positions available for people with Machine learning and Artificial intelligence knowledge have contributed to the situation with high demand, but low supply.

After completing this course, you learn the major concepts in NLP that also contribute to the skill development in the field of AI and ML, where you get an in-depth overview of the applications of NLP in these areas. 

In case you wish to explore AI and ML further after completing your NLP Nanodegree program, you can opt into the Udacity AWS machine learning Nanodegree program and Udacity Artificial Intelligence Nanodegree program too.

However, you need to put in the effort and be persistent in the path of building your career while pursuing your courses with Udacity, to establish your career.

Udacity Features

If you are eager to discover more about Udacity, we have got you covered. 

The online certification courses from Udacity took birth in 2012. The idea was founded by Stanford University professors to bring free computer science-related courses for everyone interested to learn. 

The demand for jobs has created successful partnerships and graduates after they pursue nano degrees from Udacity. 

Nanodegree programs are framed to introduce the candidates to highly complex topics in the relevant field. 

In the case of this program and every other nano degree program, learners can benefit from the added advantages as follows:

• Highly flexible courses
• Experienced mentors to encourage and provide industry-specific training 
• Real-time projects 
• Courses with mini-projects
• Career-oriented services
• Mock interviews and resume building support for job assistance

Udacity is recognized as one of the best online course providers with all the complex concepts covered by an in-depth curriculum and practical exposure.

Also Read: Udacity Deep Reinforcement Learning Nanodegree Review 2022

Pros and Cons of the Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree 

Udacity Nanodegree program has pros that can overthrow the cons, however, let’s be genuine about them since this Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree review is going to make you the choicest decision in your career path.

Pros –

Let’s talk about the benefits first. 

The program lets you get prepared to build applications that involve both spoken and written language.

The collaboration with innovators like IBM and Watson has given birth to a world-class curriculum.

Moreover, you get to learn from a team of experts who are industry experienced to let you gain real-time professional expertise.

The program also helps you refine specialized skills in NLP and voice user interfaces.

Cons –

Now, let’s come to the cons of the program.

Udacity programs are generally not that cheap, they offer courses at quite higher prices; however, if you are looking to polish your skills with complex concepts covered, then this might not be an issue. 

App learning is not supported by Udacity. The Udacity apps were removed back in 2019 by the App store. However, the browser learning experience is great, with dashboards and a personalized tracker to view your progress.

How do I know if this program is right for me?

If you aim at becoming an expert in NLP, this program is perfect for you. Throughout the program, you can be an expert in major aspects of NLP, like sentiment analysis, Speech Recognition, machine translation, etc. 

You can learn the top-notch probabilistic and deep learning models, utilize them to code or train on real-time data, and build a career-oriented portfolio as an NLP expert. 

Must see -> An Honest Udacity Review 2022| Best Online Coding Platform?

Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree Certification

Once you complete the Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree, you can grab a certificate similar to the image shown below.

You can print or download the certificate from the Udacity account, and share it across any of your social or professional platforms.

Nevertheless, this certificate can be a useful addition to your resume and your LinkedIn profile to seek the attention of employers or hiring firms.

Hope you found this Udacity Natural Language Processing Nanodegree Review helpful and informative.