Make sure your Raspberry Pi and your laptop are both connected to the network switch.

Plug in the power supply to your Raspberry Pi.

Open a command prompt on your laptop.

From here down, everything is done on your laptop.

At the command prompt, type:
ping raspberrypi
You should get back an IP address.

type:
ssh pi@raspberrypi
(password: raspberry)

If you were successful, you should now be operating on the pi.

type:
sudo nano /etc/hostname
Replace raspberrypi with a hostname of your choosing.
Type: ctrl o (hit Enter to save)
Type: ctrl x

type:
sudo reboot

This will disconnect you from the pi. After 20 seconds or so, type:
ssh pi@<yournewhostname>
(password is still: raspberry)

You are now back in your pi.

Type:
passwd
Change the password to something you can remember or record.

type:
sudo nano /etc/default/keyboard
Change keyboard layout from "gb" to "us"

Create a user for yourself, add it to sudoers and switch to your user.
type:
sudo adduser <yourname>
sudo usermod -aG sudo <yourname>
su <yourname>

type:
sudo apt-get update
then:
sudo apt-get upgrade

type:
sudo date --set 2019-09-20
sudo date --set 13:25:00

type:
sudo raspi-config
	- Interfacing options
		- Enable VNC Server
	- Advanced Options
		- Expand Filesystem
exit

type:
sudo reboot