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There’s no start menu; instead you use a program called which works sorta like Explorer. There’s a row of icons along the bottom for commonly used applications, called a “dock,” but I still have programs decide to just remove themselves from the dock when I close them, no matter how many times I click, “always show in dock;” there is no desktop icon in the dock to get to a blank icon.

I almost never use the dock. I keep it hidden below the bottom of the laptop screen.

The easiest way to start apps on the Mac is to type Cmd-Space, then start typing the app's name. Watch the Spotlight window in the upper right. Hit Enter when your app appears. Spotlight learns what you look for, so, after a few times looking up an app, the right one will appear after a keystroke or two or three, and you won't even need to look at the list.

Much easier than the dock or keeping the dock stocked with the right set of apps or searching through the Applications folder with Finder!