A little dramatic. Put it in list mode and you’re good. Or drag the folder you want into the window.

I wouldn't call it dramatic, I feel like windows and linux (Caja, specifically for me) are mostly intuitive and natural but Finder is bizarrely alien and unproductive. There's not a native version of Caja to install so finder kind of makes lost in general.

Also Samba shares seem to mount perfectly on windows/Caja but on Finder there is some weird issue where after it working a few days suddenly you can't connect unless you use the terminal.

If you open the Finder preferences, you can add few useful things, like your $HOME to the sidebar.

you can also just drag any folder to the sidebar and it will be added there for you.

Cmd+shift+g brings up a dialog where you can type arbitrary paths to jump to. Cmd+(up arrow) goes up a directory. Took me way to long to figure these out, seems small but they definitely are productivity boosters :)

I’d suggest that you lookup and learn keyboard shortcuts. Going up a directory is Cmd + Up Arrow, going to Desktop is Cmd + Shift + D, going to Documents is Cmd + Shift + O, going to Downloads is Cmd + Option + L, Cmd + Shift + G to bring a Go text input that understands ~ for home folder as well as autocompletes on tab, and so on. While macOS is not as keyboard friendly as Windows or Linux, it’s not totally devoid of it either.

If you’d like to have a more powerful experience with file dialogs, the paid application Default Folder X [1] is worth it.

[1]: https://stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/index.html

Right-click on the folder in the title bar of the finder window.

Click the parent directory or the home directory.