There are many important things to keep in mind when sculpting, but for a beginner the first thing you should really do is play around with basic geometrical shapes: spheres, cubes, cylinders, and the likes as these are the shapes that you will be commonly working with, and you will get better at interpreting different forms and creating some new ones as well. Not to mention it makes for good practice, as this medium requires a lot of muscle memory and finesse when handling the clay and modeling it. You will also need a cup of water to occasionally smooth out the clay with it and make it more malleable, however do not go overboard with it as your clay will become gooey and unusable for some time. As with drawing, you can sculpt a plethora of subjects, such as portraits, human figures, vases, pendants, and other miscellaneous objects but the first thing I would recommend you to work on would be a common animal with nice round shapes like an elephant, a dog, a rhino, etc, that way you get to understand how to construct organic beings with the shapes I told you before. Another thing to note is that you can use a lot of tools to make fine details and engravings on your pieces. These can range from simple toothpicks, to wooden "ebauchoirs" and ribbons, with each being able to do an immensity of things, depending on how creative you are. If you want to learn more you can watch some YouTube tutorials to get a feeling for how you should work, and some other ones that teach you the more technical aspects of sculpting with clay aka modeling. Have fun and don't be too discouraged if it doesn't look fine the first time.
