Ignite Your SC25 Journey: HPC Crash Course & Student Programming

At SC25, student programming is designed to ignite curiosity, spark innovation, and fuel lasting connections. This year, it’s all coming together on a brand-new Student Programming page, your go-to hub for sessions, resources, and pre-registration links. Student Programming will run from Sunday-Monday, November 16-17, 2025.

Want a powerful way to start your SC journey? Then HPC Crash Course, a two-day deep dive into the foundations of high performance computing, is your chance to build community and new skillsets before the full conference even begins.

The ORNL HPC Crash Course is a series of hands-on, challenge-based exercises designed to introduce people to high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing. Each challenge focuses on a core concept and participants are given most of the working code, but with key To-Do sections left open. The challenge: read the accompanying workbook, understand the concept, and complete the missing pieces.

It’s about learning by doing, without getting overwhelmed.

— ORNL

Whether you’re coming from computer science, engineering, physics, or another discipline, this course gives you a strong technical starting point and introduces you to the HPC tools and terminology that will come up throughout the week.

Be sure to check out this short video highlighting the HPC Crash Course experience!

The Crash Course originated as an extension of the training provided to users of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF) world-class supercomputers. Every year, OLCF trains researchers to maximize their time on leadership-class systems — and that expertise became the foundation for this student-focused event.

We wanted to build on the training materials we prepare for new users — so more students, early-career researchers, and curious minds could explore HPC and the careers it enables.

— ORNL

This year, the course is being developed in partnership with the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing at Purdue University. Their Anvil supercomputer provides students with hands-on access to a production environment, and their staff brings deep technical expertise and energy.

Working together lets us reach more people and make the training more engaging and inclusive.

— ORNL

Expect a mix of short lectures, guided exercises, hands-on labs, and breakout discussions. More importantly, expect to leave with new friends, new mentors, and a clearer sense of how advanced computing connects to your future.

The course was developed to fill a need: students were arriving at SC excited but overwhelmed, unsure of how to navigate such a massive, technical event. The HPC Crash Course flips that experience by giving students not only an overview of HPC topics — like distributed computing, job schedulers, and parallel programming — but also a chance to meet one another in an interactive, supportive setting.

We built this course to open doors. Whether you’re a physicist, biologist, computer science student, or just curious about supercomputing, you’ll walk away with real, hands-on experience and an introduction to how advanced computing drives discovery.

— Suzanne Parete-Koon, Students@SC Student Programming Vice Chair & Workshop Lead

This year’s HPC Crash Course will take place on Sunday, November 16, 2025, right at the start of the SC25 Student Program. The course is free with Student Program registration, but spots are limited and fill up fast. 

To participate, you must be attending SC25 in person. Once you’re registered for the conference, fill out this form and follow the instructions to get access to Purdue’s Anvil supercomputer.

For additional details on the HPC Crash Course, visit the Student Programming page:

The crash course is just the beginning. This year’s SC Student Program features the Ignite Your Career series — a full schedule of sessions that offer practical (and often nuanced) resources essential for professional development in HPC and beyond.

Whether you’re seeking your first research opportunity or planning for grad school and beyond, the Student Program is designed to support and inspire you.

Professionals with experience in industry, universities, and national labs will give dedicated insight to students who have questions about how they should proceed in their careers.

— Daniel Barry, Students@SC Student Programming Committee Member

The Ignite Your Career series includes:

• Career panels featuring professionals from industry, national labs, and academia
• Résumé and portfolio workshops to help you present your skills with clarity and confidence
• A panel on international education systems, offering insight into how academia and research are structured around the world
• Dedicated networking sessions to help you build lasting connections within the HPC community
• One-on-one career coaching with experienced mentors

We’re so excited to welcome you to the SC community — where strong foundations, fresh ideas, and meaningful connections ignite small sparks that can grow into lasting impact. See you in November!