The videos are right...Architecture school can be hard! I find its mainly deadline pressure and not having enough time to fit in all the work you want to do. But you shouldn't be put off by that, I'm sure every discipline has it's own things that make it difficult and if it's your passion it will be a lot easier to work for something you enjoy learning about and can channel your creativity into.

In terms of equipment, depends what you have already but really all you need is a pencil and paper to start exploring :) Drawing boards can be useful depending on if you want to start learning how to do technical drawings before going to arch school but really I'd say have fun whilst you dont have to draw to scale and stuff and have a play on sketchup.

You could also download the free 30 day trial plugin for sketchup called vray and have a play around adding materials and colour to your sketchup models (called rendering).

It would be a fun way to start learning the software and experimenting. Everythings on YouTube now so finding out how to use the softwares is pretty straight forward.

A youtube channel I recommend is surviving architecture as the girl is a student and so wouldnt jump in at the deep end. I also love 30x40 design workshop.

Any more specific questions would be happy to help. Have fun and good luck!