Because I've never seen a python class before that was 'no experience required' where they go "Well, normally we'd teach you about variables, and loops, functions and operator precedence...but you know what? Screw all that. Head first! YOLO! Write me some code."
If that is how that class is, I'd drop it and go hit youtube or something. How to Learn Python stuff is pretty available if you want to learn (and python is pretty useful).
So how did you end up with an assignment like this while apparently knowing little if any python? This feels like someone signed up for a class, blew it off, and now suddenly has tests and stuff to turn in.
My take: I don't recommend distros like mint because they're windows-y, I do it because they're good 'shit just works' starting points and Linux newbies probably don't need to be spending 2 hours figuring out why audio doesn't work or whatever. Once they get their feet under them and learn their way around a shell, etc then they can start playing around with other distros if they like.
FWIW I have a friend that made pretty decent money doing IT work up on the Alaskan oil fields. Paid well, but it was months of living in the middle of nowhere. Might not be as bad these days. I could see them having satellite internet and stuff. Also, this assumes you have IT skills and can deal with being nowhere for months.
People tend to really suck at limiting themselves. If you're wandering around in gemini space you're not going to run into pages with lots of ad banners, trackers and other monetization BS. You pretty much can't. On the web, you can run into simple fast pages but it's getting less and less the norm. And the lack of easy ways to monetize means it's unattractive to corporations, which helps avoid creeping enshittification.
Gemini is light, simple, and easy to parse. It's just lightly marked up text. Compare the size of Lagrange with the size of Chrome or Firefox. And nobody is forcing you to use it. 🙂
Linux is bloat. You should be entering your own minimal kernel in microcode via front panel switches at boot instead of being so wasteful. What do you think all that RAM and drive space is for? Holding data??
(Seriously, the modern minimalist thing is hilarious to me and I've been using computers since 16K of RAM was impressive...)
Oh, and I almost forgot, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.