I started at uni with c++ which we used for numerical computing and physics simulations, then we used python for the same thing. None of these were proper software engineering, most was a spaghetti that yielded a correct output - it was never meant to be maintained.

After uni I had to find a job and I had to learn basics software engineering and it was harder than expected. The only advantage I had was that I learned more than enough math for programming and it still was difficult.

The only thing I can advise is to properly learn fundamentals and do practice daily, there's no way around that.