Hi! I'm a complete newbie to the bitcoin community. Do you guys have any recommendations on what I should be doing first? Would truly appreciate any advice you can provide. 
First go to youtube and watch some videos of Andreas Antonopoulos. Get them all into a playlist and watch them. THis will give you some basic understanding of the topic.
Next you should get a wallet. Bitcoin core or Electrum are the best. Get into an exchange like Coinbase and buy some Bitcoins. You can just buy $100 in Bitcoin or even less if you want. Get some and learn how to send and receive, how to use qr codes, how to set fees and so on. These are the basics.