Most people find our codebase very overwhelming, especially without a lot of programming experience. But at the same time, I'm personally proof that it's not impossible for someone with very little knowledge to get a grasp on everything and learn a lot along the way. Education wise, I've never taken more than intro classes to Java and C++ before swapping to a different major, and that was over 10 years ago. Everything else I've learned is completely self taught either through trial and error or help from the other devs, and solely from working on this project.

The most demanding thing about being able to contribute are both time and willpower. Learning is tough, it takes time.