How prevent my student web space from displaying as a file directory?

By default, our web server will display whatever files and folders you place in your web directory. You will be able to browse your files using this automatic directory index. To change this behavior for a specific directory add an index.html, index.php, or index.cgi file to that directory. Directories with files like that in them will not generate automatic directory indexes. Instead, they will display the content of your index file interpreted by php, cgi, or as html depending on the file extension used on your index file.