I need some advice as someone wanting to do SEO freelancing

Hello, I'm fresh out of high school and I want to do some freelancing: SEO in particular. So, I have some queries and would really appreciate advice from those of you who are experienced in this field.

1) To get started on this job, is it enough to do online research (YT, reddit, google etc.) and do some courses on SEOs etc. ? Is there any other requirement like programming?

2) I won't have any experience right off the bat obviously, so is it going to be really hard to find clients?

I'm grateful for all the helpful posts here and would love if you can give me some answers as well.