College Laptop Program vs. Bring Your Own?

blevine
Wed, 03 May 2017 16:56:14 +0000

@GoRedhead My son is finishing his freshman year. He has had labs where he had to bring his laptop to the lab, that would be difficult to do with your desktop Also most freshmen live in tiny dorms with little personal space. A desktop may not be ideal to bring, few do so today. There are ethernet connections if you do, but space is the problem. If your “desktop” is somewhat compact then it may work OK.

If I were you, I would look at the specs from last year on the RPI website. If your unused laptop meets or can be upgraded to meet those specs, no reason you MUST buy the RPI laptop. I doubt the specs this year would be raised all that much. I would also email any questions to the help desk at Voorhees Computing Center. They were very helpful last year when we were trying to decide to use our own vs their laptop.

As a parent I was happy to buy the laptop for my son, not wanting him to have any downtime during the semester. My son wanted to bring his Mac, and bought a SurfaceBook that met the RPI specs for Windows. He mostly uses his Mac that is an older Mac.

For those who said Mac is a bad idea, my son says many of his professors carry a Mac and he has now had 2 CS classes with all work done on his Mac.

Don’t underestimate the value of hardware repair/loaner program. The semester goes so fast in college, being without a laptop for even a few days can be a killer. I really tried to talk my son into using the RPI laptop, but he loves his Mac and the handwriting on the SurfaceBook.