TL;DR - As a freshman, do the coding exercises yourself. No AI on the basics - you need the syntax in your hands, and school exams are often on paper.
In CS there are two types of learning: theory, where you test yourself, and practice. Practice is harder in my opinion, but absolutely achievable.
If you're a freshman, focus on practice and do the coding exercises yourself - especially when they're easy. You will not learn if AI does them for you. AI can do a lot of things, but you need to get your own hands on the if statements and for loops first.
In my first semester I intentionally didn't use AI for the exercises. I knew that if it did things for me, the syntax wouldn't stick - and I wouldn't pass. School is different from real life: at school you need to know the syntax, because you'll probably be writing code on paper at the finals.
Learn what they actually test. Play the game in front of you.