Jay
Shah’s advice is all accurate AFAIK, but …
… after one month’s playing, your small T1 ship against a vet in a similar-looking ship will almost certainly lose almost every time because they can fit more/better stuff into the ship.
A “Rule of Thumb” I use for combat in games (not just EVE): if everything else is equal, a 5-10% edge in damage delivered + a 5-10% edge in damage received converts to 90-95% chance of winning.
Knowledge matters too of course, and you have less than a real PvP vets (not compared to “100% gankers” though /lol). But that’s in the “everything else in equal” category.
Later on small-ship combat can become more nearly equal.