Jumpstart Workshops
For the 2025-26 academic year, we have organised a series of 3 optional preparatory workshops designed to help incoming students build confidence and foundational knowledge for programming. These workshops cover essential skills like working with different media types, navigating the command line, and understanding how computers work under the hood.
Each workshop includes a short guided lecture, a hands-on creative activity, supporting notes and optional readings. No prior experience is necessary. To take part, you will need a laptop (rather than a phone or an iPad*) and an internet connection.
These workshops will run online before the start of term, and be hosted by CCI technical and teaching staff, and a team of student helpers. Each workshop is repeated twice, and students are invited to attend as many or as few of these as they are able.
Please register for the workshops you plan to attend so we can get an idea of numbers!
01: File Systems and the Command Line
This workshop will cover fundamental parts of interacting with a computer filesystem, and show you how to find hidden information about files. Through learning about the command line and the file browser, you’ll get to see a different side to your computer.
| Session 1 | 10-12am BST, September 9th | zoom link |
| Session 2 | 5-7pm BST, September 16th | zoom link |
02: Image, Sound and Video
We'll look at different kinds of digital media files on computers, learn how they are made (and what they're made of!), and how to find them both locally on computers and online. you’ll get to see a different side to your computer.
| Session 1 | 10-12am BST, September 9th | zoom link |
| Session 2 | 5-7pm BST, September 16th | zoom link |
03: Make a Website
In the final workshop of the series, we will explore how to use filepaths, text editors and media types to make small websites that will be hosted online.
FAQ
I only have a phone or an iPad/tablet -- can I still attend? You are welcome to join, but there will be some activities that won't be possible to take part in without a full computer. If you have questions about this, please contact Agnes on a.cameron@arts.ac.uk and we can try and arrange something.
Will the workshops be the same in both weeks? Yes -- we're running them twice so as many people as possible can attend around working commitments, and different timezones.
Can I attend the same workshop in both weeks? Yes, if you want to! You are welcome to attend as many as you like.
Do I need to go to them in the right order? What if I can only make one or two? While we think people will get the most out of them by attending in order, each workshop is designed to teach useful skills by itself, and it's fine to attend whichever you are able to!
What programming languages do these workshops cover? The workshops are designed to teach general skills rather than specific languages, apart from the final workshop, which uses a small amount of HTML to make a website.
Will you run these in person after term starts? We're not sure yet -- it depends on attendance. If not, we also run a program of technical skills workshops in the department that might be of interest.