April 8, 2026
The Computational Linguistics certificate is the newest certificate available for undergraduate School of Computing and Information (SCI) students. The certificate, which was created by the collaboration of the SCI Department of Computer Science (CS) and the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Department of Linguistics, gives students the opportunity to learn more about computational linguistics, language technologies, and natural language processing. The certificate can lend itself not only to CS and Linguistics majors, but also to those in information science, data science, digital narrative and interactive design, and further.
Diane Litman, SCI’s Associate Dean for Mentoring and Development and Professor of Computer Science, was a part of the CS side of the team making the certificate. Litman said part of the motivation behind creating the certificate for students was the importance of better understanding AI.
“[SCI and the Department of Linguistics] wanted to provide students with an opportunity to formally specialize in language and AI,” Litman said. “The certificate was designed to serve Pitt’s undergraduate students who were already informally seeking integrated training in computational linguistics, an interdisciplinary field of study.”
Because of computational linguistics’ interdisciplinary nature, both sides were integral to the creation of the certificate. Litman explained the objectives of the certificate overlapped between schools and departments, which gives students interested in these fields real-world experience in collaboration across expertise.
“The certificate will provide a shared academic home for SCI and Dietrich students learning side-by-side and heightened visibility for recruiting and fostering them,” Litman said. “Computational linguistics will not only be a hub for interdisciplinary education, but also for cross-school cohort-building and collaboration.”
The certificate provides two tracks for students to follow, dividing it into 27 credits of prerequisites and 17 or 18 credits if the linguistics track is chosen or 18 credits if the computer science track is chosen. The separation into two tracks gives students the ability to get a deeper focus of either language data, with linguistics, or language engineering and natural language processing, with computer science.
Litman said the two tracks give all students common core courses along with core courses, elective courses, and a capstone specific to each track which allows students to follow their interests.
“While the certificate aims to equip students with shared foundational knowledge across linguistics and CS, it also recognizes the distinct goals of students in each school,” Litman said. “The goal of the CS track is to guide students to achieve technical proficiency in natural language engineering. The goal of the linguistics track is to instead train students in computational methods and data skills for linguistic problem solving.”
This new certificate provides invaluable skills for those hoping to join the workforce in the new generative AI era. Litman explained the importance of the knowledge covered by the certificate.
“With the rise of Generative AI and large language models, demand for experts who understand both code and language is growing rapidly,” Litman said. “‘Computational linguistics’ is often cited as a qualification in language tech job postings.”
The computational linguistics certificate provides a variety of students across differing fields the ability to gain a greater understanding of computational language in collaboration with each other. The certificate will provide an important resume builder for many and will give interested students an opportunity to learn about AI language in an ever-shifting landscape, preparing them for the future.