C# 14 and .NET 10 – Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals: Build modern websites and services with ASP.NET Core, Blazor, and EF Core using Visual Studio 2026

I would recommend spending some money here. $40 seems like a ton for a college student, but this book will get you very familial with the language. https://www.amazon.com/14-NET-Cross-Platform-Development-Fundamentals/dp/1836206631/ That baseline makes it a lot easier to go and learn new things. From there, I would go with this one if you plan to do web development (websites, apis, etc.)https://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Web-Development-NET-10/dp/1835888925/ You also want to make sure you know about dependency injection, automated testing, and this will lead you to design patterns like the repository pattern. You'll want to make data-driven apps, so it's worth learning SQL and either dapper or EF Core, but ef core is its own topic. Also throughout your career, there will be many topics that you are unfamiliar with, but due to your tech background you will not feel like a novice/beginner. Here's where I encourage a bit of humility. Approach things as if you are a beginner so that you don't have gaps in your skillset. When a technical subject says for beginners, it doesn't always mean it's geared toward a non-technical person. A lot of times it means very skilled people who happen to be new to this topic in particular.