www.beyondlogic.org is a good place for info on interfaces, also includes some 16F- examples.
On the freshmen thing, look for people who already program something and see if they will go through a tutorial. Most of my pre-C expieriance came from NQC, which doesn't have any of the funky overhead and has nearly immediate results on a simple device (or devices). Or just look for freshmen like myself who just need a week with the EDU, but I don't think there are many.