I found some upper level classes and id’s (for lack of knowing how to refer to them) weren’t getting inputted when using shortcodes. So I inserted the class/id’s in the text element holding the shortcode. Fixed 80% of the styling issues!
Just for future reference if anyone ever runs into similar issues this might be a help:
When using course grid with learndash and X/pro do the following to get the styling applied from the course grid bootstrap.min.css

Set the text element to have an id (not class) of ld_course_list
To remove meta information (such as author, comments and date meta) on Courses, lessons, topics and quizzes use the following CSS set in theme options:
.sfwd-courses .p-meta{display: none;}
.sfwd-lessons .p-meta{display: none;}
.sfwd-topics .p-meta{display: none;}
.sfwd-quiz .p-meta{display: none;}
I hope this might help someone in the future.