Skip to main content

Setting Up GitHub

GitHub is where your project code will live online. It's the standard platform developers use to store, share, and collaborate on code. Think of it as Google Drive, but purpose-built for software projects.

Step 1: Create a GitHub account​

  1. Go to github.com
  2. Click Sign up
  3. Enter your email address, create a password, and choose a username
  4. Complete the verification puzzle
  5. Click Create account
  6. Check your email for a verification code and enter it
Username tips

Pick something professional — your GitHub profile is visible to employers. Your real name or a clean handle works best. You can always change it later.

Step 2: Finish setting up your profile​

After verifying your email, GitHub will ask you a few questions about your experience. You can:

  • Select "Just me" for team size
  • Select "Student" for your role
  • Skip any feature selections and click Continue

You now have a GitHub account.

Step 3: Verify it works​

Go to github.com and confirm you can see your dashboard (a page showing your repositories, activity feed, etc.). If you see the dashboard, you're good to go.

What's next?​

Now that you have a GitHub account, we need to install Git on your computer so you can push code to GitHub from your terminal.