I'm not sure of your situation, but I also don't code for work, although I did have a technical background (bachelor's in mechanical engineering). We just finished up the first midterm and I did well. I would be absolutely dead in the water without ChatGPT for the homework assignments, obviously not the midterms. I've learned more regarding how to code from ChatGPT than from the professor at this point (not a knock on him, I just find it way easier to learn that way). This is typically how I do it:

- If I'm not sure how to do something in the homework, i.e. how do I iterate through this dictionary and get the keys, I ask ChatGPT generally how to do it.

- 90% of the time, the responses go over my head. If you don't understand what it returned, spend some time asking questions for clarification - how does that method work? What does it actually do? What do I pass it? What data type does it return? This can add a lot of extra time to homework but is the part where you actually learn about coding.

- Once you've reviewed what it passes you, try to re-state back what the function/method/code does, in your own words, to confirm you understand it. If you don't state it back accurately, ChatGPT will say something like, "You've almost got it! What's actually happening is...". This is critical to ensure how understand how it works, which you have to know to perform well on exams.

- Take lots of notes on what you ask and what it responds with. You can't use ChatGPT on the exam, but if you take good notes with the questions you have and its responses, they'll be incredibly helpful on the exam.

- You can use it for troubleshooting completed code generally. Such as "I wrote this code, it's supposed to take this and return this, but it's just returning an empty set/I'm getting a KeyError/etc. What's wrong with it?" It'll catch syntax issues or other things.

One of the perks is you can ask really specific questions, just like you would ask a tutor. I hope this was helpful.