Some days do you find yourself without much to do? Maybe you, like me, waste many hours in front of a TV or computer? As a student, you are told to do lots of worthwhile activities outside of your degree. Coming across work experience can be hard, and there aren’t a lot of ways you can fill up your CV without time and money.

For me, a great way to stay productive in my free time is computer programming. Now this may sound dull to many of you, but it can be very mentally stimulating when you know the possibilities. You can design your own portfolio website, computer game, novelty iPhone app and lots more. All of these will demonstrate your individual motivation, problem solving ability and technology fluency to employers and is an easy way to fill up the ‘technical skills’ section of anyone’s CV – particularly those studying science, maths or engineering based subjects.

Entry into the programming world can be daunting, but once over the first few hurdles you’ll feel like a wizard. There are many different ‘languages’ to learn, each with specific uses and advantages. Personally, I would recommend looking into ‘HTML’ & ‘CSS’ first. These are the languages websites are written in (you can right click and press ‘view source’ on any website to see the code!). This is a great place to start because it is relatively easy and can help you build a website. Even if you just have a Tumblr blog, learning HTML and CSS means you can write your own theme (design and layout) from scratch.