What is Prompt Engineering?
Is Prompt Engineering a technical science or a creative art? It’s both.
What is Prompt Engineering?
Is Prompt Engineering a technical science or a creative art? It’s both.
Welcome to the first lesson of Northeastern's INFO 7375: Prompt Engineering for Generative AI. In this module, we look at the analogy of the "Writer" to understand why most people can talk to a language model, but very few can prompt one effectively.
Just as anyone can write a sentence but few can write like James Baldwin or Jane Austen, prompt engineering is about mastering the craft of communication. It’s not just about the first input; it’s about the refinement, iteration, and evaluation of the output to get exactly what you need.
In this 5-minute lesson, we cover:
The Writing Analogy: Why "prompting" is the modern equivalent of a creative writing class.
The Power of Iteration: Why your first prompt is rarely your last, and how to refine for better results.
Effectiveness vs. Speed: How to get the specific output you want without wasting hours on trial and error.
The Global Skill: Why prompt engineering is becoming the #1 required skill across every industry.
Practice with Us: This course isn't just theory—it’s about practice.
GitHub Repository: [Insert Link to nikbearbrown/INFO_7375]
Course Chatbot: [Insert Link to your custom AI tutor]
Exercises: Try these techniques today on Gemini, ChatGPT, or Claude.
About this Series: This is the first module of a comprehensive course taught at Northeastern University. Whether you are taking this for university credit at @NikBearBrown or as a volunteer with @HumanitariansAI, these short, bite-sized lessons are designed to give you actionable tips you can use immediately.
Next Lesson: What exactly is a Large Language Model (LLM)?
Transcript
A lightly formatted transcript of the video, with timestamps so you can jump to any section on YouTube.
[0:00] Nick Bear Bernome here. Uh you're looking at some AI generated footage of famous writers and nonf famous writers. Uh this is for a module of the first third of my northeastern course on prompt engineering and generative AI. It's also standalone module on front engineering. So why are we looking at writers? To make the analogy that prompt engineering is like writing. That's the James Baldwin not that much looking like him. the James Baldwin writer there. And the the point we're trying to make with this analogy is that most people can write sentences. Not everybody is Hemingway, Langston Humes, James Baldwin, you know, uh, Jane Austin, all the rest of them.
[0:50] They spend a lot of time in their craft to write effectively. Anybody can write a prompt into a langage mom. or most anybody just like most anybody can write a poem. Very few people write good poems. Very few people write effective prompts. What prompt engineering is about? It's very much like a writing class where they give you a lot of writing tips and you practice a lot of writing. It's about learning how to prompt effectively. So throughout the course, we're going to give you a bunch of tips and it's also about looking at the output. So basically, language models will always give you output. And we'll
[1:25] Explain what a langage model is exactly in the next uh video. But sometimes they're wrong and sometimes they don't give you they not but might not be wrong but they might not give you exactly what you want. So you need to refine it. You need to get the output and change and iterate and change and refine. To do that effectively to one get what you want as opposed to whatever the language model gives you and to do it quickly. This is what prompt to general is about. It's about effectively talking to language models and we give you a bunch of tips. Uh but the main thing is practice and we
[2:03] Have a github where you can practice unless you want. We have a chatbot associated with the course where you can practice as much as you want. You can also practice on all the major chatons you know Gemini, Cheng GBT, Claude etc etc. What this course is going to be about is the fact the tips and for for talking to language models to getting the output that you want. That is what prime tendering is. And it's very much like writing. Most people can write. Not that many people write well. And writing well takes practice. It takes learning. Most major writers are taking courses in writing. Many have
[2:41] Literature degrees. And so this is what this course is about. the this is the first third of a course I teach at Nor Eastern on prompt engineering and generative at this is the prompt engineering part of it it's also standalone course that you can just take on YouTube about effective prompting and I'm going to try to keep the lessons short you know we're already have three minutes and I'm going to try to keep them to around five minutes each little short lessons that you can watch and then practice practice practice practice practice and you'll get better. If you do it, you'll get better at prompting.
[3:17] You'll get more effective prompting. And prompting is probably the number one skill in the world right now. Every industry is beginning to use language models to help them. They're looking for people who can effectively use those language models and it's already dominating pretty much every industry and it's just started. Prompt engineering is a crucial skill because it can be 10 minutes prompting or it can be 10 hours and prompting and not getting what you want depending on how effectively you prompt. So, this is what this is all about. We're going to give you lots and lots of little tips on both prompting and how do
[3:56] We evaluate the output? If we don't get what we want, what we what do we do? So, that's it. Uh, I'm going to try to keep these to around five minutes or so. Again, the reason why you're looking at, you know, people writing on laptops is to make the analogy that prompt engineering is writing. Everybody can write. Not everybody writes effectively. Prompt engineering is about learning to write effectively. Okay, take care. That's it.
