First of all, self is a conventional name, you could put anything else (being coherent) in its stead.
It refers to the object itself, so when you are using it, you are declaring that .name and .age are properties of the Student objects (note, not of the Student class) you are going to create.
class Student:
#called each time you create a new Student instance
def __init__(self,name,age): #special method to initialize
self.name=name
self.age=age
def __str__(self): #special method called for example when you use print
return "Student %s is %s years old" %(self.name,self.age)
def call(self, msg): #silly example for custom method
return ("Hey, %s! "+msg) %self.name
#initializing two instances of the student class
bob=Student("Bob",20)
alice=Student("Alice",19)
#using them
print bob.name
print bob.age
print alice #this one only works if you define the __str__ method
print alice.call("Come here!") #notice you don't put a value for self
#you can modify attributes, like when alice ages
alice.age=20
print alice
