New to beta fish as a student!

Hello,

I was told recently that in my dorm I can have fish as long as it's under 10 gallons. I immediately thought of beta fish since I know that they can thrive in slightly smaller tanks.

However I have heard that they can be... picky?

I have done some research just regarding broad topics like cycling, stocking, plants and such but any advice will be appreciated.

The LAST thing I want to do is take on a pet and then not be able to care for it properly.

From what I understand, you take like a few weeks with no fish to test your water, begin growing your plants and introduce the bacteria (ive been advised to use filter squeezing and media transfer for this), then your introduce the fish very slowly (but with a beta, obviously it would be just the one). I'm hoping to build a tank with densely packed plants to do a lot of the filtering and stabilizing naturally to reduce some of the work for me, but I also heard that you should do water changes like twice a week and light my tank for 6-8 hours daily.

I'm sure that I can do those things reasonably even though I'll be busy with school.

So I guess what I'm asking is if there is anyone who had fish in their dorm, what advice they have, if you think this is a horrible idea and I shouldn't do it please tell me, and also if you think another kind of fish would be better for this I'd love some recommendations 😊.

*p.s. I'm planning on about a 5 gallon tank