<p>I will be an AE student at USC and bought a TI-84 Plus on sale yesterday. Will this be enough calculator to last me till graduation, or should I return it and upgrade so I don’t have to upgrade later on?</p>
<p>Not sure about USC but pretty much all of the math exams at Berkeley prohibit the use of calculators on the test. This isn’t a unique phenomenon. If this applies to USC as well, it might not matter much what kind of calculator you have (except for study purposes).</p>
<p>I made it through a masters in structural engineering using my 10-year-old TI-83 and campus computer labs. Anything I couldn’t do on my trusty ol’ graphing calculator I’d probably need to use MATLAB or something for.</p>
<p>TI-89 fo sho!!!</p>
<p>I thought of the TI-89. What exactly makes it worth it for AE?</p>
<p>Though again, can the TI-89 do important things that are impossible for the TI-84 Plus to do, or could I just upload programs to make it just like a TI-89, except maybe in speed (as if they were slow to begin with)?</p>
<p>there is no AE specific calculator…get a Ti83 plus or Ti89</p>
<p>
solve algebraic equations in exact terms, simplify symbolic expressions, polynomial and partial fraction expansion, algebraic and numeric differentiation and integration, finite and infinite summations, solve differential equations with and without [Dirichlet and Neumann] boundary conditions, graph 3-D functions</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nope, these are only available on the TI-89.</p>
<p>…I still contend that everything you can do with a TI-89 can be done with a much less expensive TI-83 that you’ve probably already got, a free campus computer with MATLAB, and your brain. Plus, if you’ve already got a TI-83, chances are pretty good that you know it well already, so you might as well stick with the calculator you’re familiar with. Anything you can do with the TI-89 that you can’t with a TI-83, you’re not going to be allowed to use on a test, so no point in getting something portable.</p>
<p>Spend the money on textbooks instead. An 89 isn’t necessary. If you want it, if you can spare the money and would still like it, whatever, but the stuff you’ve already got plus the stuff they’re providing to you in college is going to be just fine.</p>
<p>Your 84 will be just fine, if you don’t want to return it.</p>
<p>I have an 89, 83, and an hp33s scientific calc. I havent touched the 8’s in almost a year - I use the 33s for classwork/exams (where they’re allowed, so not in math) and Matlab if I need anything more powerful.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure, a computer can do infinitely more things than the TI-89 can, but you probably don’t have access to it everywhere, especially when doing homework in groups. Likewise, your brain can (or at least should, anyway) do almost anything a calculator can, so why buy a calculator at all? Math classes may ban calculators, because after all the point of the exams is to see if you can do the calculations by yourself, but I’ve never had an engineering exam where calculators weren’t allowed. In any case, the point of getting the TI-89 isn’t to take exams necessarily, but it just makes homework calculations and quick algebraic checks so much more convenient. You argue that someone may already be more familiar with the TI-83, yet you advocate learning Matlab (a complicated beast compared to the user-friendly TI’s) to do slightly more advanced functions. What if I do all my homework in my dorm room; should I go out and buy Matlab for $99 then? You know, they didn’t even have graphing calculators until the 80s, I believe, but would you be willing to go through grad school with just a scientific?</p>
<p>Amazon lists the TI-84 Plus for $115 and the TI-89 Titanium for $148. IMO, the difference of less than 30% is a no-brainer, seeing as how engineering textbooks can up upwards of $100 each.</p>