Students must provide their own laptops for classes at NSS and having the right laptop will make a difference in your bootcamp experience. It's important that you follow these guidelines for machine specifications.
See below for our recommendations for laptops to use during our full-time or part-time bootcamps for web development, data analytics, and data science.
First, a couple of overall thoughts on hardware.
- You do not need a new laptop for NSS - many machines manufactured since 2014 will work just fine although some may benefit from upgrades (in particular to RAM).
- Even if you are going to acquire a laptop it need not be a brand-new machine. Many students acquire used or refurbished machines.
- No matter which technology you will be learning, you can use either a Mac or Windows laptop that meets our requirements as outlined below.
Jump to: Analytics + Data Science || Backup Drives
Web Development Bootcamps
Updated February 17, 2021
C# Web Development Cohorts
Windows Laptop for C#
It is recommended that you get a laptop with the Windows operating system in you are enrolled in a C# cohort. Minimum specs are as follows.
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Memory 8GB minimum
16GB preferred
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Hard Drive 512GB minimum |
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 preferred
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Operating System Windows 10 |
Mac Laptop for C#
Updated February 18, 2021
If you are planning to buy a new laptop for the course and are planning to take a C# bootcamp, at the present time, we DO NOT recommend that you purchase a new Mac laptop that uses the Apple M1 processor chip, but rather acquire a Windows laptop or a Macbook Pro laptop with an Intel chipset. Apple is currently transitioning the processor chips in their laptops from Intel to a proprietary Apple chip. There have been some software compatibility issues noted with the new Apple chips.
If you already own a Mac and want to use it for the course, it must meet the following, minimum specifications.
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Memory 16GB minimum
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Hard Drive 512GB minimum |
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 preferred
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Operating System High Sierra or later |
If your Mac does not meet these minimum requirements, then we urge you to get a new or refurbished laptop with Windows installed. Employers will expect that you have familiarity with the Windows operating system.
Jump to: Backup Drives
Python Web Development Cohorts
Mac Laptop for Python
It is recommended to have a Mac if you are in a Python cohort.
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Memory 8GB minimum
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Hard Drive 256GB minimum |
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 preferred
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Operating System High Sierra or later |
Windows Laptop for Python
The Windows operating system will easily work for a Python cohort, but setup and configuration are more difficult.
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Memory 8GB minimum
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Hard Drive 256GB minimum |
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 preferred
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Operating System Windows 10 |
Jump to: Backup Drives
analytics + Data Science Bootcamps
Updated April 3, 2020
You can use a Mac or Windows laptop for our Data Analytics or Data Science Bootcamps.
Data Analytics Cohorts
If using MacOS, you will need to purchase VMWare Fusion (approximately $150 plus tax, as of 1/5/21) so that you can work with Excel and PowerBI on Windows. NSS will provide Windows software for your VM and MS Office.
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Memory 16GB minimum
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 or i9 preferred
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Hard Drive SSD is preferred (or 256 GB and an external hard drive) |
Operating Systems Windows 10 (Home or Pro)
Linux: recent distribution |
Data Science
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Memory 16GB minimum
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CPU Intel i5 minimum
Intel i7 or i9 preferred
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Hard Drive SSD is preferred (or 256 GB and an external hard drive) |
Operating Systems Windows 10 (Home or Pro)
Linux: recent distribution |
Backup Drive
You will be learning amazing things during your time at NSS. However, with great power comes responsibility. You will be pushing your laptop harder that you ever had before. You may also spill water or coffee on your laptop while in class. You may drop your laptop. You may inadvertently run a command that permanently deletes very important files that make your operating system work.
Because of these common issues that students have, we strongly urge you to buy a backup drive for your laptop to ensure that you don’t lose the investment you’ve made in your computer and your time at NSS.
