I got a Canon Rebel t4i as I started my junior year of high school, Fall 2014. And I was so excited to use it! I contacted my girl friends and told them I wanted to do a photoshoot!
I had absolutely no idea what to do with my camera. The only button whose function I was aware of was the shutter button (the button you press to take the picture). Everything else was completely foreign to me, so I did not bother with it. The camera settings I used were whatever settings the camera was set at when it was shipped to me.
Since these were taken in the sunlight, no wonder they're so blue haha.
I also had no idea how to edit. I didn't have access to photoshop on my laptop and I hadn't ever heard the term "Lightroom" before. We choose which photos we wanted to keep in iPhoto on my laptop and used iPhoto to "edit."
After that, I pretty much put my "fancy" camera on a shelf and didn't touch it again for almost a year.