Why I picked MERN stack and why you should just pick something

Photo by Lautaro Andreani on Unsplash

I started building MERN stack projects in mid 2025. Why did I choose it? Because it was the easiest to get my hands on. We were taught database rules and logic using MongoDB at university for 2 semesters. So I already had an idea of collections, documents, normalizing, horizontal and vertical scaling which are fundamentals for system design.

And with so many stacks and technologies out there, we computer science students have to start somewhere, right? I have no idea who those people are that always have a clear roadmap. Because honestly I was stuck too. I didn’t know what stack to choose or where to start. University throws more than just web development at you. There is Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Mobile App Development. It takes time just to figure out where to even begin, so just start somewhere.

When you pick a stack, you cannot master it in a week. With regular semester assignments, quizzes and papers, it takes a minimum of 1 to 2 months to build your first full stack project, which would be some CRUD application of course. But that is part of the journey. You get to know the stack well after making at least 5 projects, and with each project you move one step further.

For example, in the first one you will be making a CRUD application like a to-do app. I know that is not impressive on a resume, but we gotta learn the basics. The second one would have an authentication layer and you will be learning about JWT and middleware. Then in the third you would move further and add role-based access, filtering, and APIs. Then in the next one you would be adding some LLM, a chatbot, or some AI based filtering, and so on.

And friends, I am still in this process. I do not know yet if it all works out, but I am still going. All of this needs your time and effort, and somewhere along the way we would still feel like we are falling behind, but you need to keep going. Keep making projects that are based on a real problem. We will discuss how to find project ideas in the next story. Best of luck to us!