As a computer science student you should know: just break it down into small chunks.

1. Get service to run locally (IP / port)
2. port forwarding, access remotely
3. Set up a free DuckDNS domain, Lets Encrypt, use for a bit
4. Buy a cloudflare domain, set up dynamic dns, Lets Encrypt (again), swap away from DuckDNS
5. Set up Nginx reverse proxy, port forward to that instead, proxy to service’s internal IP + port
6. Run more things!

That’s generally what I did… I’ve been self hosting for about a year now and I’ve got 6 services going now… once you get going, it’s quite easy!