Sometimes you don't care about the loop variable itself. You just want something to happen a specific number of times. The for loop handles this cleanly.
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
System.out.println("Hello!");
}
This prints "Hello!" exactly times. The variable i takes values , , and , but the body never uses i. It's just a counter that controls how many times the loop runs.
The convention is to start at and use < n rather than starting at and using <= n. Both give you n iterations, but starting at matches how Java indexes arrays and strings. You'll thank yourself for building this habit early when you start working with collections.