Install Rust using rustup, set up the rust-analyzer VS Code extension, understand the Cargo project system, and compile and run a Hello World program.

Understand Rust's three ownership rules, differentiate between moves and copies, use references to borrow without transferring ownership, and read basic lifetime annotations.

Define structs with methods, use enums to model mutually exclusive states, and exhaustively match patterns with match and if let.

Define and implement traits, use generic type parameters with trait bounds, and understand how Rust achieves zero-cost abstractions through monomorphization.

Use Result<T, E> and Option<T> to handle recoverable errors, propagate errors with the ? operator, and create custom error types.

Write closures that capture their environment, chain iterator adapters for expressive data transformation, and understand how iterators compile to tight loops.

Add the Tokio runtime to a project, write async functions, spawn concurrent tasks, and make HTTP requests with reqwest.

Use the clap crate to define and parse CLI arguments, combine file I/O with error handling, and ship a functional word-count tool.