I am considering starting a new skill path and am hesitating between the ‘Create a Front-end app with React’ and the ‘Create a Back-end App with JavaScript’ paths. I will follow both anyway but need to pick one to start. No previous experience except Python/Data Science.
Suggest start with JavaScript core language before embarking upon React or Node.js. This will give you the foundation needed for both.
Front-end is serverless so confines itself to what can be run in the user agent (browser).
With your knowledge of Python, you could leverage it in a back-end Django environment, but you still need to have a good understanding of the HTML and CSS since you are essentially generating response documents from data and templates on the server.
For back-end, you can start to learn first JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Angular Js, React and many more.
For Front - End javascript, HTML, CSS and photoshop is enough. For more career growth back end is more important.