I've since purchased the 8GB upgrade which is helpful for now, although even that is a small amount of memory for a new person to R (it's necessary to write and rewrite code and try other things to accomplish roughly the same result, all while using up a lot of RAM). My computer is old so I can't replace its Windows 7 with any version more than 8 lest it crashes, and we wouldn't want that.
Now I have a new problem with uploaded Excel spreadsheet - attempting to clean it up a bit using the functions involving read, filter, and write, since to do the same thing in Excel takes waayyy too long and might crash it. But even chataigpt isn't giving me the right code, so far.
Anyway, I sincerely wish there was a class with an instructor and students so that every new problem (which happens every day as a new R person) could be dealt with on the spot and become part of the learning experience. Let me know any questions or comments on the capstone project.