Big Nerd Ranch

• Almost everything is included in the package — hotel, food, ground transportation, and the class itself. A shuttle even picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel.
• The fact that you're in one location for a whole week with nothing to do but learn is the best part about this.
• The class is pretty intense. It's split between lectures and then working through a tutorial chapter in the book covering the same material. It seems like there was always *almost* enough time to finished the chapter material before we went to the next lecture, but never quite enough, and I don't think I'm slow. In the end, though, it was effective.
• Encouraged breaks for lunch, dinner, and afternoon nature walks. It really helps to give your brain time to breathe for a few minutes and let the previous lesson sink in. The nature trails around the conference hotel were quite nice, when it wasn't raining.
• The teacher and the TA (a teacher in training) made themselves available for "study hall" time after dinner, when you could go and ask more questions, or just finish up the challenges you weren't able to finish in class.

• With as much reliance on the book as the class had, I feel like I could have gone through the book myself, consulting some more experienced developer friends if I got stuck. Would I have learned it so fast, or would it have sunk in as well as when I was able to concentrate on it for a whole week? Probably not, but it's an obvious alternative if you need to save money.
• You're asked in the pre-class survey if you have any food allergies, which I do: a moderate dairy allergy and a severe peanut allergy. However, nothing seemed to be done with this information. Meals and snacks at the hotel contained these ingredients and there was no labeling. If you asked the staff what items didn't have dairy, they didn't know, and would have to go ask the chef. Thankfully the peanuts were confined to a couple of easily-spotted snack mixes, but dairy was all over the menu, and it was hard to eat healthily.
• Surprise hotel fee: This is the "almost" — you have to let the hotel charge your card a deposit for "incidentals," even if you don't use them. I would have loved an option to forego any incidentals at all, but I suppose that is probably outside of BNR's control.

Big Nerd Ranch knows how to put on a bootcamp!

The curriculum was thorough and easy to follow. The instructors were engaging and very knowledgeable. If they didn't know an answer off the top of their heads they would help me find the answer.

The location, Stone Mountain Resort, was breath taking and extremely comfortable. All of my needs were taken care of and provided the perfect environment to focus on learning.

I cannot recommend this bootcamp enough to anyone who is looking to jump into the Swift and iOS world. I was able to take the skills I learned from this bootcamp to launch my first iOS app!

The Big Nerd Ranch changed my life. I was working as a lawyer and writing software on the side. I wanted to transition to writing software full-time, but I didn't have the confidence to make the switch. I heard about the Big Nerd Ranch from a friend and I decided to attend a seven-day bootcamp in Atlanta. I took a week off of work and drove to Atlanta for the class. I was very nervous because I wasn't a professional software developer and I didn't have a computer science degree. The first morning, my instructor made me feel at ease. As we worked through the materials and the examples, I noticed that I knew as much or more than my peers. I took advantage of the lunch and dinner time to speak with my instructors and peers and my confidence  continued to grow. By the end of the week, I knew that I wanted to write software as a full-time job and I had the confidence to do it. I got home and, with my Big Nerd Ranch certification in hand, I applied to several software development jobs. After several offers, I closed up my law firm and started my new career as a software developer. I still work as a software developer. I even write software for some of my lawyer friends. All thanks to The Big Nerd Ranch.

Being able to take a week away from the hustle and bustle of your daily workflow to focus on learning a new skill is an amazing resource. That is exactly how Big Nerd Ranch is set up and let me tell you, it works.

I chose to attend the Android Essentials Boot Camp after having attended an Advanced iOS Boot Camp in the past. I chose Monterey because the location is on a campground with cabins (many of which include fireplaces), great food at the three scheduled meals per day (as well as a shop that sells food and drinks including beer & wine during off meal times), and amazing beach views. Location, location, location.

As far as content is concerned, the instructors are incredibly knowledgeable  and are there for you during all of the hands on sessions. Our instructor also hung out with us in the evening when we gathered around a fireplace and worked on the material we had learned during the day. It's a great learning environment and it is staffed with the right people for the job. You'll also meet people that you'll talk to in the months after your course and maybe forever.

If there is one complaint I could make it would be that the pacing can be inconsistent at times. The instructors do a great job of managing and adjusting for this though so it's not a major complaint.

I highly recommend checking out a Big Nerd Ranch Boot Camp if you get the opportunity.

This course was an excellent, though high intensity, introduction to iOS programming with Objective-C.  Clearly this is an older course, and I have since gone on with the books to Swift, but Joe Conway did an excellent job with this hands on course, keeping everybody together on the same page and steadily progressing.  I have been a developer/programmer for a long time, and I was glad that I completed the preparatory steps that were listed in the registration material.  I'm not much for the wilderness, so the location was a bit odd, but on the other hand, having nothing to do but study and code did increase the tendency to, well, study and code!  This was a very early iteration of this course, so Joe was literally rewriting parts of it as we went.  Overall, an excellent experience.