First: what do you want to be able to do with programming? Be as specific or general as you like. It's a broad skillset.

I have a computer science degree and let me tell you it didn't really come naturally to me the first time I took a class (almost failed). Anything that requires a lot of skill requires patience and practice

I say "let's keep it public" because normally I would do a voice chat.

@StrawberryArmada talk to Lukas bro

Creating bots and doing web design would be useful

If that even involves programming much

I honestly don't know

Why do you think you can't learn on your own?

I've tried to learn stuff like Python and Java myself with books and videos but

I think I lack the inclination to get it without more guidance

What don't you "get"? Honest question.

I have the option to take a class at school

I really don't understand what programming languages even are

I don't know how people figure what to put in and where to put it

I can't really tell if there's supposed to be some big list of premise commands

I getcha.

Or if people invent stuff and the computer just figures it out somehow

I don't even know how computers work really

OK, let me start by saying that "knowing how to program" is very much a continuum.

It's a huge skillset. For example, I make applications primarily for automated analysis and visualization of scientific data.

I don't know nuffin about languages like C and Clojure, and I don't need to right now

Similarly I know very little about networking

the "college question" when it comes to programming is a tricky one

I went the STEM route. I have two masters' degrees in engineering. But I didn't really know anything about coding until I got out of school

I taught myself. But those skills that I taught myself are used literally 10X more than anything I learned in school

I probably could have skipped all that college altogether

similarly the CIO where I work barely has a high-school diploma, and one of our mutual friends is a self-made multimillionaire who taught himself some tech stuff and got into the phone-dialer business.

Incidentally I'll be consulting with him to answer @Procella Eques 's question

I've also met people with CS degrees who can't actually solve problems using code

think about programming this way: different languages have different core philosophies and strengths/weaknesses

what I can do in server-side javascript, I can also do with Python, more or less. But some problems will be easier to solve with Python, others with Javascript.

Once you learn a single language, others come much easier

What does it mean to learn a programming language

I started out with PHP, then went to Perl, then C#, then Python and JavaScript

How similar is it to natural language if at all

It means you can solve problems using the grammar and syntax of that language.

"learning" is a constant process

that's the joy of it, but it takes some getting used to

So there's rules like grammar in the way you put commands in and commands are like vocabulary?

yes

Glad I studied linguistics for once