I had my very first QSO using my new Ham callsign with a VHF/UHF handheld!

Not that it wasn't fraught with difficulties....
I had use of an Intek K890, pretty much a Baofeng under a different brand. It's standard audio is quite poor but an external mic improved that to the point of people no longer being able to 'guess' that it's a 'Chinesium', (or in other words not a Yaesu/Icom/Motorola etc...!?!)
My broadband router would open the squelch and wipe out reception on the damn thing! Poor radio front end? Maybe, but a Yaesu didn't prove much better in the vicinity of the router either. The final solution was upgrading the router cables from the poor ones supplied by the provider to decent Cat5e cables and then that particular source of interference went away!
With the standard mounted short antenna reception/transmission was difficult, to the point that I could only get reliable transmission hanging out of the back bedroom window, (how I eventually achieved my first QSO!) It was great in the outdoors such as my back garden but at that time with winter rapidly approaching and constant rain it was an uncomfortable experience. With a leg disability it was none too practical to get out of the house anytime I wanted to try VHF/UHF either!
I did try harder, especially after some offers of making contact by Charlie Tango members, (Hi Trev!

Thanks for trying mate and my apologies for always seeming to miss you!), but had poor experiences. On one occasion another Ham answered my calls, despite calling for someone else, then went on to make a multiple repeater time-out twenty minute over! It had started to rain during that, ahem, QSO(?), so I signed off and went back in the dry of the house. On another occasion I 'joined' a net, sat in the cold listening to every over and despite freezing my butt off was never called in?!?! Perhaps they 'forgot' me? But it wasn't a great experience either.
So after all that I pretty much resigned myself to the warmth of my shack and the HF set....

I may try VHF/UHF again in the future, but only with a decent homebase antenna or until our local repeaters ever get back up and running again. There are digital 'modes', some of the local repeaters are unfortunately digital only, so you'd require a digital mode radio although some of those modes are voice based. Weird when GB3PI's female voiced computer announces a 'node connection' and someone from a different part of the country or even different part of the world starts talking! Maybe of interest to some, but not for me personally.
You may have better luck than I did, if you go that route I do hope you get to enjoy it better than myself. You might appreciate the 'repeater' world, but could also find it a little lacklustre, who knows? Personally I'm glad I didn't splash out money on something I didn't find, for me anyway, very radio rewarding.
My own future inclination may be a homebase setup or a transvertor for my HF rig to try out 2m SSB.
In the meantime the handheld sits in its charging cradle.....probably for the next time my Grandson can visit and brings his walkie

Good luck with your exams!
Although my own experience may seem a poor example you do get a lot of radio world to explore once you're a Ham. You can try out different bands, frequencies and modes and settle on something you enjoy.
All the best,
Victor