As you can see I'm new to the forum and have made the decision to become more knowledgeable about the technical parts of bitcoin technology before I start my trips with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. How do I make a new wallet? What exchange can I trust?
There are many useful threads on the forum that you can use to gain the technical knowledge you want. You can make use of the search function for to search any but here is a
beginners and help encyclopedia by Ratimov with almost all the necessary information or useful threads on the forum there.
For wallet this particularly thread on
Bitcoin wallets will answer your question, but from forum suggestions and security reasons, you should use the electrum wallet for bitcoin storage and Unstoppable for multi cryptocurrency storage.
On the issue of Exchange, you can use decentralized exchange which is preferred to than centralized exchanges because of KYC protocols like Bisq. Do not leave your coins on any exchange because
not your keys not your coins