@Madscientist, yes, a level 1 character is more than an ordinary person in society with respect to their training and experience in whatever class they gain that first level. However, the exact amount of those experiences can vary somewhat, from game to game and from class to class. And those experiences are what you are supposed to write up in your character background for your DM in a PnP game, at least it was in all games I was in or which I ran. This has been true across all D&D editions. I started playing with 2e some 25+ years ago.
