I Learned REST APIs in College - But Nobody Told Me What They Actually Do

You open Instagram.Your feed loads. You like a post. You follow someone.Every single one of those actions is a REST API call happening behind the screen.

College taught me GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, status codes, endpoints, JSON.I memorized it. Answered exam questions about it.

Then I sat down to build a real project and had no idea how any of it actually connected.

Here's where every REST API concept actually lives in the real world.

Real example first, then the concept, then where to use it.