Neural Networks in the Undergraduate Curriculum

Neural networks have been and will continue to be major research areas in artificial intelligence. Such models show promise in achieving human-like performance, particularly in areas such as speech and pattern recognition. Recently, neural networks have begun to find their way out of the research labs and into the realm of practical applications. Unfortunately, however, the study of such networks has been largely overlooked in the computer science undergraduate curriculum. Tomorrow's marketplace demands that computer science students be familiar with neural networks and with their problem solving abilities. This paper presents a proposal for a neural network module to be integrated into an Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course. Such a module proved to be a very popular and successful part of such a course given by the author. Sample projects assigned in the course will be presented. In a number of these projects, students either used microcomputer application software which simulates several neural network models or programmed their own simulations on microcomputers.