As a new player in the system, you will have the default profession (also known as Role) of a Colonist. As a colonist, you have access to all the stations available in-game and can play around with all the level 0 recipes. But you will not gain any experience for performing those tasks.
You can only earn experience (also known as CXP) as a Colonist by using the Compass.
While you are a Level 0 player, you can change professions for free. Once you have levelled into one of the professions, it will cost you experience to change to another. It also costs experience to increase your traits or change your race.
In this video, we show you how you can choose your profession (or role) when you are ready, as well as briefly show you how you change your race or increase your traits.
The experience station is found in the SLColonies Main Store.