React Basics

I started this certificate when I realised my self-taught React knowledge had gaps — I knew how to build things but not always why. The Meta program forced me to go back to fundamentals: semantic HTML, CSS specificity, and JavaScript under the hood before touching React at all.

The hardest part was the capstone project, where I had to build a fully functioning restaurant booking app from scratch with no hints. It pushed me to read documentation properly instead of copying Stack Overflow answers.

After finishing, my debugging speed noticeably improved because I finally understood the render cycle properly.