Big Nerd Ranch

Pros:

- 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... Read More 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.

Cons:

- 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.
- 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.

The complete immersion into the subject matter is fantastic. I attended the iOS Dev and by the end of the course, I was not only skilled but confident in those skills. I am now a fulltime iOS dev.

I have recommended BNR to colleagues that have gone and... Read More loved it as well. I will be going back shortly to add Kotlin to my bag of tricks.

The format is well thought out and the material builds on itself nicely.

Just like Big Nerd Ranch's books, their bootcamp courses are top notch. This was my first development bootcamp and I can say without a doubt it was the perfect introduction to both iOS programming and bootcamps in general. The instructors were very versatile,... Read More delivering a curriculum that they real-time adjusted to suit each student (we had some first time programmers and some seasoned developers in our class). There's a reason BNR has been around for all these years and on a continued growth path, their attention to quality sets the bar for other educational companies to aspire to.

I took this 7 day bootcamp when it was iOS Essentials with Objective-C at the Historic Banning Mills location as did a couple of the other reviewers. The course was excellent. The instructor was awesome. The food was great. The accommodations were cool.... Read More The ziplines were a new experience. The mosquitoes were legion.

I didn't really believe it when the instructor told us to plan to spend some late nights, but most of us were there every evening until 10:00pm or so. Worth every penny. Most technical training classes I attend usually end up with me sitting around fiddling with stuff that is not a part of the assignment because I complete assignments quickly. The instructor picked up on a few of us who were a little more advanced and gave us additional stuff to try. It was refreshing to be continually challenged. The instructor had also built apps for BNR clients, so he had enough experience with the pain points of development (and of Xcode) to give us additional information to minimize those potholes. The fact that there was almost literally nothing else to do there at night encouraged a lot of extracurricular studying.

BNR books are great, and you should have the collection regardless for reference and refreshing purposes, but if you can in any way make it down to one of the bootcamps you will not regret it. It is an intense, superior learning experience.

I attended the iOS 7 day class with Objective-C.

I have been to literally dozens of training classes over the years and 90% of the bore me.

This was the best training class I have been to by far for the following reasons.

1. Immersion - If you can find the... Read More time, please try to. Being dedicated helps focus and results. There are a lot of online courses available and they are really good. This experience is world-class.
2. Instructors - My instructor was world-class. I was looking for industry expert which is what I got
3. Teaches you how to learn - Many classes and online sites tell you how to do things. BNR does some of that but more importantly they teach you how to use the Apple docs properly and find the correct answers yourself instead of relying on search engines
4. Classmates - You will find that all your classmates are very motivated because they also are dedicating the time. I love learning from others and since you eat and train together all day you get to learn a lot from many different angles.

(Please note my class was iOS with Objective-C but that was not an option in the drop-down list)

Without a doubt, I highly recommend BNR's iOS Essentials with Swift course. As an experienced developer that was looking for a springboard into iOS / Swift, this course was great. During the course of the program, we were exposed to important topics on... Read More iOS and Swift and were encouraged to think outside of the box and ask questions beyond the course material. At the end of the course, I had not only a large portfolio of working code examples, but also experience and knowledge beyond what could be found in just the book.

Location and amenities were great as well.

Helpful hints: 1) Make sure to be fully focused on the training while there. Do your best to avoid work emails, etc, unless required. 2) Have a project or idea to play around with during office hours in the evening. This is a great way to expand on the knowledge you have learned on a daily basis and will allow you to ask questions beyond what is covered in class, and the instructors will be helpful in answering your questions.

Only downsides are that it can be tough to get away for that long and cost can be high if your company is not covering the training.

I've attended the Android course as well, and it was great. Really looking forward to the Kotlin course in May!

I attended the iOS Essentials with Swift bootcamp in Monterey. The Asilomar Conference center is beautiful and very comfortable. I was new to iOS programmng and so, for me, the pace was very fast. The course proved to be an excellent foundation for me... Read More to build upon. I am looking forward to attending an Advance course when I feel like I have progressed enough to benefit from it. I had wanted to attend a Big Nerd Ranch bootcamp for quite some and was not disappointed at all.

My instructor was excellent. Very knowledgeable and able to explain difficult (for me) concepts. Small class size and a wonderful group of fellow students made for an excellent learning experience.

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,... Read More 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!

I was deeply impressed with the Big Nerd Ranch bootcamp. Our company was interested in expanding our IT systems into mobile applications and we decided to attend an iOS bootcamp at Asilomar. BNR does a great job at pairing excellent teaching with a retreat... Read More style getaway. The grounds look like you're taking a vacation but the 12-14 hours a day of instruction and lab time ensured the material became second nature. The instructor was highly knowledgeable and was able to address any question we had. He sprinkled nature walks and other activities throughout the week so that our brains were able to decompress from the rigorous learning. While the overall course doesn't cover everything required to launch an app of your own, you get a great level of knowledge that let's you tackle the remaining learning much easier.

My background - I had about 7 years of Software Development experience out of which 3 years I had been working on developing iOS Apps with Objective-C. I took a break for about couple of years from iOS development and software altogether and wanted to... Read More get updated with Swift and iOS 9. Big Nerd Ranch (BNR) Guides have been the gold standard to anything apple and I thought I would be able to come to pace by doing an intensive week long bootcamp. I would not say I achieved 100% of what I had planned for.

The course starts on a weekend (Saturday). You arrive to the facility on Previous Night (Friday) and have dinner with the instructor (Mine was Scott Ritchie) and other attendees. I was a Asilomar Conference Grounds CA and it was a great campus. Scotts a great guy to hang out with. He has worked with Apple in its glory days (pre-iPhone) and loves to share stories about his encounter with Steve Jobs. He has good knowledge of how Apple Development team and hence the software written have evolved and how it affects the current development ecosystem. Also he is well networked with todays app developers so can definitely share pragmatic tips about app development. He was very attentive towards all student queries and also was kind enough to chat about anything related to iOS development and even stuff outside of it. He knows the area in and out and makes sure everybody is comfortable even after hours. He drove me to supermarket as I did not have a car and need urgent shaving supplies which I had forgotten to pack and made margaritas for us for one of the camp fire labs.

Let me get to the point about the course.

Pros
- Very comfortable stay (I would say over comfortable. I would not mind to pay less and settle for a little less lavish and more functional stay during 7 days).
- Instructor was a great guy to hang out with.
- People are mostly friendly and helpful and the batch is small so Instructor does get a chance to work with everyone.
- After course, camp fires, wine nights, labs with camp fire and margaritas (shh) and beach walks between the course were fun.
- You could meet a lot of interesting people working in valley. We had people from Netflix and couple of them from Apple (though they were in stealth mode), Intuit, Black Pixel, 3M. Great bunch to network and hang around with.

Cons
- Pace - I found the program to be a little fast even with iOS programming background I had. I highly recommend to go through the entire book (BNR's iOS and Swift Guide) so you have enough time during the bootcamp to go into further details. You will learn the most if you do all the labs and ask questions when you are stuck or a concept you are not understanding.
- Screen - BNR should provide a bigger and better screen. There was constant adjustment/focus/scrolling going on and I though it affected the flow of the instructor.
- Meals provided by the facility will get to you in 3-4 days. So plan to explore the surrounding areas.
- Connectivity is very bad. Could be a pro as it keeps you focussed on the course and gives you enough rest but the rooms and facilities are ok for the price.
- Biggest point I thought that they can work on is include more practical areas that are used in today's apps. I was surprised to see things like Push Notifications and use of Networking Libraries skipped. I would say these things are essentials rather than advanced topics.