Outdated

Hi Austin, I'm sorry if you are having issues. 
While it might seem like the content is outdated the process of creating these things moves much slower than the UI changes.

The good news is that there's actually 2 ways to deal with this problem.

1. Use the same version as the course was recorded with.
This will not slow you down trying to learn 2 things at once (ie - where did that button go AND what the hell am I doing?)
After you acquire the knowledge, it's much easier to figure out if a node has changes, or if a button moved over here or changed names etc.

2.  Use the latest version of Blender and try to figure out all these changes as you go......as well as trying to learn how to do the thing.
You can ask questions when you get stuck, but it's a lot slower to learn this way.

If you really want to accelerate your learning then I would suggest doing it twice.
First time through, follow along with 3.6 and make the thing.
Second time through use the latest version and try to make it again (or even better)

If you are serious about levelling up your skills - that's the fastest way.

Hi Austin, there is even a third way:

Start learning with newer Courses (for instance https://cgcookie.com/courses/sessions-type ). When you're comfortable enough with Blender, you'll be able to learn from odler Courses and Tutorials more easily; Blender Versions become less important. 

That being said, the differences between the Compositor Nodes in this Course and 5.1 are not as big as they look at first sight.

Also if you want to see why Blender versions are of little importance when it comes to learning or even 3D in general, have a read at this short thread:

https://cgcookie.com/community/18260-learning-through-different-versions-of-blender