I don't know where to go from here

Hey everyone!

For some context, I'm currently in my first year of a Computer Science degree, so I haven't really studied computer graphics or anything like that yet. On the other hand, I've managed to build a pretty solid foundation in C and C++.

Lately I've become really interested in low-level game programming, but I honestly have no idea where to start or how to learn it effectively. Over the last few days I've been working on a small falling sand simulation using raylib. I watched a video about a similar project where the creator mentioned that they implemented the simulation logic with a compute shader. They didn't go into any programming details though, they were mostly just talking about the project.

That was one of those moments where it really hit me just how much I don't know. To be honest, I'd already realized that long before this, but it still made me feel like I'm nowhere near good enough. I started reading about shaders and related topics, and it all feels incredibly overwhelming. Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

I genuinely don't know how I'm supposed to learn all of this. It's pretty demotivating to realize how many things I don't understand yet.

I'm curious how you approach learning new things. How do you stay motivated? Do you prefer written resources or video tutorials? I'd also love to hear what keeps you going and how you got to the level you're at today.

Thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to reply. Wishing you all the best!

(I translated this post with AI to make it easier to understand, since English isn't my native language.)