Hi @carterschlo. The Arduino sketch program that is running on the Arduino board is configured to communicate over the serial port at a specific baud rate. This is done via the Serial.begin function.
For example, if the sketch contains a line like this:
Serial.begin(115200);
then the Serial communication is done at 115200 baud.
The Arduino IDE Serial Monitor must be configured for the same baud rate as set in the sketch program. If it is not, you might see gibberish output in Serial Monitor instead of the expected text, or no text at all.
Check to make sure the selection in the menu at the top right corner of the Serial Monitor panel matches the baud rate in the sketch code. If not, select the correct baud rate and press the reset button on the board to restart the sketch program. Hopefully you will then see the expected output in Serial Monitor.
If things are not working as expected even with the correct Serial Monitor baud rate configuration, please let us know in a reply here and we'll suggest something else you can try.