Schedule (Semester A 2026/2027)

Weekly Schedule

Week	Date	Topics	Notes	Readings	Submissions
1	Sep 1	Course Overview and History of DL Review of Math	Lecture01A (YouTube) Lecture01B Colab Python Tutorial PyTorch Linear Algebra	History of AI with DL Python Basics Python Classes YouTube: Colab Tutorial	-
2	Sep 8	Artificial Neurons Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) MLP Architectures Traditional Activation Functions Loss/Cost Functions Gradient Descent	Lecture02A Lecture02B Colab House Regression Colab IRIS Classification	The Evolution of AN Mastering MLPs Activation Functions PyTorch	-
3	Sep 15	Backpropagation Gradient Descent Optimizer Variants Core Model Design and Training Techniques Advanced Activation Functions Weight Initializations: LeCun, Xavier and He Batch Norm, Layer Norm, RMS Norm Regularizations: L1/L2, Dropout, Data Aug	Lecture03A Lecture03B Lecture03C Colab MLP MNIST Colab MLP FMNIST Colab MLP CIFAR-10	Backpropagation PyTorch AutoGrad Classification Metrics GD Optimizer Variants Core Techniques Deep Dive with PyTorch	Project Grouping Due: Sep 18, 2026
4	Sep 22	Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) Evolution of CNN Architectures LeNet, AlexNet, VGGNet, ResNet, etc Transfer Learning CNN-based Computer Vision Apps		Basics of CNNs The Evolution of CNNs AlexNet Paper Colab Yolo12 (Camera) YOLO CVPR2016	Project Proposal Due: Sep 25, 2026
5	Sep 29	Tokenization and Word Embeddings Recurrent Neural Networks: RNN, LSTM and GRU RNN Attention Mechanism		Tokenization Word Embeddings RNN, LSTM, GRU RNN Attention	Assignment 1 Due: Oct 2, 2026
6	Oct 6	Transformers Quiz (8:45pm - 9:45pm)		Transformers Explained Attention Is All You Need	-
7	Oct 13	Large Language Models (LLMs) BERT and its Variants GPT-1, GPT-2, GPT-3, ChatGPT BART and T5		BERT Unleashed The GPT Revolution BART and T5 A Brief History of LLMs	-
8	Oct 20	LLM Decoding Algorithms Prompt Engineering LLM Evaluations (Optional)		LLM Decoding Prompt Engineering LLM Evaluations	-
9	Oct 27	LLM Scaling Laws and Quantization Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT)		LLM Scaling Laws LLM Quantization VRAM Estimation PEFT of LLMs	Assignment 2 Due: Oct 30, 2026
10	Nov 3	Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback Reasoning LLMs Advanced LLM Architectures (Optional)		Instruction Tuning RLHF, DPO, GRPO Reasoning LLMs LLM Architectures	-
11	Nov 10	Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) (Optional) Mid-Term Exam		Multimodal Models Diffusion Models	-
12	Nov 17	Project Presentation		-	-
13	Nov 24	Project Presentation		-	Assignment 3 Due: Nov 27, 2026
14	Dec 1	Group Project Report Submission	Final Report Template: Template Technical Report	-	Final Report Due: Dec 4, 2026

Important Notes

• Quiz: Week 6 (Oct 6) from 8:45pm - 9:45pm
• Mid-Term Exam: Week 11 (Nov 10)
• Project Presentations: Weeks 12 and 13 (Nov 17 and Nov 24)
• Final Report: Due Dec 1, 2026

Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong