DWWW-week: Your first project!

Note for internationals: This series of events is unfortunately centered around Swedish presentations. You're more than welcome to attend anyways and try and follow along with the code of course. I'll be happy to answer questions in English.

Have you ever wondered how to really get started with programming? How does it work when you begin your own projects? What can you actually do as an engineer?

DWWW-week is an event where we create a fun project together from scratch. This year, we're building a photo gallery to showcase all the pictures we took during the freshman orientation. Along the way, we'll learn a lot about building websites (and apps). Every day, we’ll add to our project while learning about a new topic. The first few days will focus more on content design, and toward the end of the week, we’ll dive deeper into “regular” programming.

For more information about the week's schedule, see the events in the calendar.

Web development is my absolute favorite part of programming! It’s a mix of design and problem-solving, and you can build some pretty impressive apps without needing to know a lot. In short, it’s much easier than the programming you learn in school, but you can still create something that’s actually useful. Especially if you’re new to programming, I think it’s definitely something you should try!

FAQ

• I’ve never programmed before. Is this for me? YES, absolutely! The week is designed for beginners, and you’ll quickly realize that what we're working on is much simpler than even the basic programming course.
• Do I have to attend every day? Of course not. We’ll be building one project over the week, but each session will cover something new, and you’re welcome to join in for the parts that sound the most fun to you.

Outro

One day, your friend calls you up, brimming with excitement. “Hey!” they say. “I’ve got this awesome idea for an app! It’s like Instagram, but for students. You’re good with computers, right? How about I pay you to help me build it? I’ll handle everything else.”

You manage to hide your initial skepticism. After all, university life is winding down, and you can’t survive forever on a diet of free food and cheap beer. CSN only goes so far. Plus, how hard could it be? Just some photos and a few features, right?

A few days later, you finally sit down at your computer. You take a moment to reminisce about your past coding triumphs: the beautiful blockmole game you built, those abstract factories you perfected, and the smoothly running elevator algorithms you engineered. Feeling a little nostalgic, you open VS Code and create a new project.

And then… nothing. No files, no lab instructions, no teaching assistants to guide you. You stare at the blank screen, feeling a wave of uncertainty. Normally, you’d turn to ChatGPT, but you don’t even know what to ask. The realization begins to creep in: you’re not just stuck—you feel like an imposter. Then it hits you: despite learning all about algorithms, data structures, and abstract theories, you never actually learned how to code.