For this project, I read up on tutorials for how to get started with Rest API. I familiarized myself with the ISO/OSI model to understand networking protocols for all 7 layers of the model. With this project, I configured the project to first recognize my ESP32 board as a station(STA) and create and open an access point to my router. From here I would type in the network credentials I set for my device, and establish connectivity.
Below is a link to next step in this project, whee I hosted a web server