Skyrim newb! What a massive, overwhelming world! I accepted a new job and have about 3 weeks of downtime before I start, so I decided to jump into Skyrim. Holy heck! What a huge world! I've sunk about 15 hours into it so far and am at level 8. I've wandered a bit, but have also stuck fairly close to the main quest.

I'm a little overwhelmed by how huge the world is! Any suggestions on what I should do while I'm still fairly early on in my adventure?

I totally got my housecarl killed and had to hire a mercenary haha! I've also killed 3 dragons, which was a lot of fun. I find dragons easier to kill than the fucking trolls -- any tips on how to kill a bunch of ash trolls? I keep getting surrounded!

Any tips or "necessary" mods would be great!