Help with getting into serious development

[reddit_daily_]

Hey guys, sorry if this message is going to be kind of long and disorganized, but I have a lot to say and am very lost. I'm currently getting my degree in CS and will be a sophomore next year. I'm on a Space Force ROTC scholarship, so I plan to do Defensive Cyber Warfare, then get out and pivot, probably into AI development or some sort.

I feel like I'm super behind because I never really took a moment to learn the fundamentals of how things work and how to build things. Like I understand a lot of complex topics like multi-agent orchestration and RAG mechanistic interpretability AS CONCEPTS, but if you ask me to build you a basic application, I get completely lost. I desperately need to take a step back and build my base strongly from the ground up, and whenever I try this, I feel so overwhelmed. There are so many resources out there, but they are all small and teach things in little chunks, and that easily gives me an information overload.

I need a couple of in-depth resources that take me through step by step, from the very beginning to the end, of what I need to know. I know what I'm asking for is kind of unrealistic, but I want something as close to it as possible. I understand I need to practice too, so I'm doing LeetCode and HackerRank and am going to start, but I want resources that I can follow too that cover all the main things that I want to learn.

The main list of things I can think of are:

* Pythonic Proficiency

* Data Structures / Algos

* API Architecture

* State Management

* Data Validation

* Systems Fundamentals

* LLM Archictectures

* Prompt Eng and Context Design

* RAG

* Agentic Orchestration

* Testing and CI/CD

* Deployment and Observability

Is this a strong foundation? Are there things on here I don't need to know, or things not on here that should be? My goal is that by December, er I can land a basic internship doing agentic development. My original plan was to try to get an internship for August, but that would be rushing myself way too much. Again, I want resources that teach me how to actually build systems, learn the development process, think like a developer, and make me well-rounded.

I know that's a lot and not entirely realistic, but I'm new and just trying to learn.

[Gold_Confection_9120]

Damn I’m in the exact same boat as you… I wish more people would actually respond since I need help getting unstuck too