# A short video guide

This page walks you through the absolute minimum steps to go from invitation email to working in your course.

## 1. Accept your invitation

1. Open the invitation email from your instructor.
2. Click **Review Invitation** — this takes you to Nuvolos.
3. If you don't have an account yet, sign up. For students at a Swiss higher education institution, choose the **SWITCH** login option.
4. Click **Accept invitation**.

{% hint style="info" %}
First-time sign-up may take up to a minute to complete.
{% endhint %}

For more details, see [Join a course](https://docs.nuvolos.com/getting-started/students/join-a-course).

## 2. Navigate to your course

1. After signing in, the **Dashboard** shows your organisations and recent applications.
2. Click the name of the course you joined — this opens the course space.
3. Your personal instance is selected automatically. You will see the **Current state** of your instance.

For more details on the Nuvolos interface, see [Navigate in Nuvolos](https://docs.nuvolos.com/features/navigate-in-nuvolos).

## 3. Start an application

1. On the left sidebar, click the Screen button (**Applications**).
2. Find the application your instructor set up (e.g. RStudio, JupyterLab, MATLAB) and click the **power button** or the application **name**.
3. Wait 30–60 seconds for the application to load.

You can also start recent applications directly from the dashboard. For the full guide, see [Start an application](https://docs.nuvolos.com/getting-started/students/start-an-application).

## 4. Save your progress

Before you finish a work session, take a snapshot so you can always return to this point:

1. From the left sidebar, hover on the **camera icon**.
2. Click **QUICK SNAPSHOT**.

That's it — your files, tables, and application state are preserved. For more options, see [Snapshot your work](https://docs.nuvolos.com/getting-started/students/snapshot-your-work).