You don't need any of that to set up a Node project. All you need is do a next-next-next-finish install of Node. Takes less than a minute. And then you can run a Node.js file on your computer. You're all set up. None of what you are saying is necessary to set up a Node or Express project. If you mean build an entire project, well, that's a whole other conversation.

Academically speaking, beginners often don't even start with a programming language, but they start with something like Scratch, and often move into an introductory course of Java or C after, so JS ends up being their 3rd or 4th language anyway.