Hi! Don't know if this is the place to ask this but, basically what the title says.
TL;DR: Where do I start if I want to learn programming and potentially end in cybersecurity? Would computer science be a good decision? Should I learn any specific coding language?
I am a designer but I want to expand my knowledge and learn other things, programming is something that I've always kind of struggled with but I'm starting to like it nowadays.
I am currently switching my way over to Linux from W11, I've been distro hopping and trying Ubuntu, Fedora (the one I like the most as of yet) and now I will try EndevourOS (I still am not prepared to try pure Arch imho). All this playing around on Linux made me interested in coding, using the terminal, solving problems, analyzing logs, etc.
My main question is: where do I start? I'm not asking what "the best language is" or "which gives you the most jobs", it's more like I need advice on where to start with the things I want to do. While using Linux, I've been copy-pasting repos, codes, commands, etc., but I sometimes want to know what do those even mean or what the hell I am even doing, I don't want to be a copy-pasting machine without understanding what it means.
I think my objective is to end up doing Cybersecurity because, for me, it's one of the most interesting topics. I've read that it's better to start with Computer Science and then I can go with Cybersecurity or if I change, I could go with Soft. Eng., etc
I don't want to just make websites or apps, and I think I don't want to do IT (the kind of IT where you just help other people fix their computers), I do struggle with mathematics but if it's something I need to do to learn these things then I'll do it. I also would like to learn how to use/build servers.
Just want to make it clear though, I will be doing everything myself, as I don't have any money to go to a college/university, so if anyone has free resources, I would highly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance to everyone who read this and is able to help/give advice!
My 2 cents: Cybersecurity is definitely better as a secondary field. Having some pre-existing knowledge that you can leverage in your cybersec career can put you in a unique position.
I moved into cybersec from embedded software development, for example.
I think your designer experience could be a big advantage if you use it. Not sure what kind of designer you were specifically, but if you have User Interface design experience or similar then you could have a unique perspective (among cybersec folks) when it comes to user interaction, social engineering, etc. If you were a more general systems designer, same goes for understanding and breaking down large systems, etc.
Point is, definitely keep in the back of your mind the question of how you can combine what you're learning with your past experience.
That said, I do think some general computer science knowledge would be helpful to you. I'd recommend you watch some lectures on general CS and try to learn a language like Python, Ruby, etc. That background will be hugely helpful for providing a thread of context so that you have a solid foundation for security stuff.
There are so many corners of cybersecurity, and the unifying mindset that overlaps between all of them isn't even specific to technology per se, so you can definitely find your niche.
I honestly couldn't think of any compsci knowledge that would not be useful in cybersec. Dealing with exploits would require some pretty in-depth knowledge of how computers, OS, and applications interact with each other. Network intrusion would involve some in-depth networking concepts. Encryption has some very heavy math.
But yeah, I agree, it's such a wide field that there's as much stuff outside of compsci that would be extremely useful.