Best of luck to you and welcome to New Eden pilot! o/

Having finished the training and tutorials and now with the Blood-Stained Stars arc behind me, I'm looking at the options that I have, and that I'm sure most newbies do: continue sailing around doing missions while feeding my skills or seek out a corp and do corp things? Are there any clear advantages that one has over the other, or is it pretty much just a matter of personal preference? So far I've enjoyed combat over exploration, can I get that with NPC missions or would the corporation experience be better?

Another brave newby, soon gonna start to think that this entire generation of new players and old vet alts will have been in the same corporation. Nice way of throwing all advice into the wind and just join the corp with the most members where you will be guaranteed to be a disposable number and get little depth from your interactions and friendships with the others...

Had been following your posts with curiosity, can't say I am not disappointed.

Hope it turns out well tho :), Fly Hard o/

Edit: Just saw you joined Brave Newbies, great corp you will have fun with them!

So fellow newbie and wanted to share my experience so far. I am not stating this as advice or recommending this is what you should do but just sharing my experience to maybe help you.

So when I started all I heard from people was you have to join a player corp that is where the real fun of this game is, it is awful and boring without it. So what did I do after the training missions I instantly started looking for a corp to join. The problem was I only had a little idea of what I liked and what I wanted to do. At first I thought I wanted to be a pirate and so I joined a pirate training corp in high sec. I quickly learned after a day that no I didn't like it and hunting for people to kill just wasn't fun for me.

I also heard of the corp Brave Newbies and thought yeah they just go around and shoot people that will be fun, no boring hunting. However, the thing about a player corp is wardecs meaning people can kill you in high sec without CONCORD intervening. I safely got to their home system after running from war targets and even hiding in a station for a while. Now Brave Newbies is an awesome group of people but I kind of felt trapped. High sec wasn't an option because of the numerous wardecs and gate camps and flying alone in low sec with little experience scared me a little.

I realized at this point I hadn't taken time to explore on my own and find out what I really liked. I realized the tutorial agents only give you a small taste. I realized I wanted to try mining, exploring, industry and pve missions to a much fuller extent and find out what was really fun for me. The best way to do that I felt was to leave player corps and just go out on my own while I explore. So my advice would be to not rush and also do what you feel is best. I heard people say you have to be in a corp so I did but that wasn't what was best for me. Also the good thing is I made some mistakes but I changed it, I wasn't happy and now I am. So find what makes you happy in game and do it. It is your 15 dollars a month or 500 million ISK a month so don't spend it not being happy and doing what others think you should do.

And remember this is just my experience for me none of this is a recommendation you might find the right player corp and be super happy and know exactly what you want to do