When shooting my first roll of film, I thought my meter was broken, so I tried using the sunny 16 rule. Unfortunately all my photos were completely underexposed.
I shot my second roll if film still not knowing where my meter was. However, I had a better grasp of the sunny 16 rule and shot my roll outside. As a result, I got a few good negatives from this roll.
Before I shot my third roll, I realized that when trying to meter, I was looking at the focus arrows instead of the meter arrows. Once I found the meter arrows, my negatives were much better exposed. I went to some new, interesting locations when shooting this roll, and as a result, most of my matted prints are from these negatives.