Background

About a year ago when I was at the very, very, very beginning of my journey to programming, I was doing plenty of research on a bunch of different paths to follow. I was leaning heavily towards doing a “bootcamp.” I even wrote my first Dev.to post back then asking for advice!

Naturally, while researching bootcamps I came across plenty of information about the stacks that individual ones teach and why it is important to look for the “right stack.” At the time, I had little knowledge of what a stack even was. So, one day I sat down and took down a short 6 pages of notes on all of the most popular tech stacks, their pros, their cons, and it seemed like what I was looking for pointed to learning either the MEAN or MERN stacks. If you are not familiar, these are MongoDB, Express, (Angular or React) and Node.js.

While, I was intrigued at learning one or both of these, for a number of reasons I will not get into I chose a program that did not use MongoDB, Express or Node.js.

After my program, however, I have been on a mission to pick up the MERN stack (as I already had experience in React). Queue the MERN Stack Udemy Course.

I know there are plenty of people who think tutorials and Udemy courses can hinder you or give you a one-dimensional approach to development. However, this course was amazing if you are looking to pick up the MERN stack. There is not a single detail that is left uncovered.

Review

Brad Traversy is a magnificent teacher and goes above and beyond in his explanations as he walks step by step through the build. The end product is a thought out social media site for developers. You can find mine here! Feel free to sign up if you want to check it all out and if you find any bugs let me know. It is not quite in the same league as Dev.to... so, no need to worry, Ben! It is pretty cool though if I do say so myself.

From picking up nifty tricks in VSCode to implementing Authorization and Authentication in Node along with a full explanation while adding Redux and THUNK into your app, this course covers it all. Brad showcased a ton of super usuful packages and even takes the time to walk you through bringing the application live on Heroku, which I had never done before.

This course is jam packed with information. So much so that you will not remember the entirety of what you went over. It is definitely fast-paced and requires a little experience. However, if you are like me and plan on going back over this course a few different times (it is super easy to navigate to specific spots), then I believe it is a great use of your money.

If you have some programming experience and are really interested in adding a working site to your portfolio, building a full-stack application from the ground up, and picking up the MERN stack I could not recommend this class more.

Udemy Recommendations?

I would love to hear if you enjoy taking Udemy courses and if so, which ones you would recommend as well. After finishing, I am in the market and am always hungry to learn something new ☺.

Leave any recommendations in the comments!