How can I become more familiar with Macs without buying one?

[CloudWatcher]

16. Get a Mac :)

The macOS hasn't changed all that much in the last many years. You can get a great deal on a used/refurb machine. Spend a few days with one, it'll beat watching youtube by a mile. Or borrow one. Or lease one. Or pester your employer to get you one since you're expected to support them!

Btw, the "terminal" application is in the Utilities subdirectory of Applications. And that will give you an honest-to-god Unix (bash) shell prompt. So if you have Unix experience, drop into the shell and go for it. Note the Unix underpinnings of macOS has been enhanced over the years. So while it has parentage of Mach and NetBSD, there are a lot of Mac-specific features blended in as well.

But for sure, there is a *lot* to macOS. While the user-interface is intended to be easy to understand, pulling back the curtain on what is really going on is not trivial. Depending on how broad & deep your knowledge is expected to be, expect to spend time learning and figuring it out.