HCC Offering Free Course in Artificial-intelligence Essentials

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College (HCC) will offer a free, eight-week training course called “AI Essentials: in partnership with the nonprofit CanCode Communities.

The real-time, instructor-led, online training program will run on Wednesdays and Fridays, May 2 to June 27, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day. The class is free to eligible Massachusetts residents.

Over eight intensive weeks, participants will learn the fundamentals of AI, including prompt engineering, tokenization, embeddings, model structures, retrieval-augmented generation, agency, compute, and ethics.

The course emphasizes practical applications, leveraging tools such Google AI Studio, n8n, and OpenWebUI to explore how AI models are built, trained, and deployed in the real world.

“Along the way, participants will gain valuable professional-development experience, enhancing their technical skills and problem-solving abilities,” said Arvard Lingham, HCC’s executive director of Community Education and Corporate Training.

Tuition assistance is available for qualified Massachusetts residents 18 and older. Limited seats are available. Laptops and WiFi hotspots for internet access will be provided for students who need them. Funding for the program comes from the Western Mass. Alliance for Digital Equity.

To sign up for classes, email [email protected] or visit cancode.org/apply-now and choose ‘AI Essentials.’