Buying student versions of software

Montegut
Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:35:23 +0000

Son took a course as a freshman mech eng major in Solid Works, and is currently working on a research project using this software. He’s been trying in vain to get a copy of the software, but to no avail. We found it for sale for less than 200 bucks, student version, and were just going to order it for him to put on his laptop.

His professor has Pro Engineering on his computer, and I’m considering purchasing a copy of the student version of this software for him, which would be under 100 bucks as well, but wonder whether it would be worth it, since he’s never been taught this program. I could also purchase a 700 page textbook on the software, which would be less than 200 bucks with the software and accompanying DVD.

Son is spending a lot of time going back and forth from dorm room to lab, which is not open 24/7, to work on his project, and it’s worth it to me to spend the money to save him time in his already busy schedule.

Want to hear feedback from other engineering majors who have purchased student versions of software and whether they helped them with working on projects and whether they were easy to self-teach. His previous software experience is Matlab, Fortran, C++, and Sequel (?) and Unix (?). I’m not a computer person, but just going by memory for the names of the latter two.

When talking to the professor who would send me the Pro Engineering student software, he said the commercial software would be 5K, so 200 bucks for textbook and software seems like a good price.