My son is going to an LAC, but hopes to take advantage of a 3/2 engineering program. I have emailed those schools about their computer requirements, but have not heard back. I don’t want to purchase two computers. If you have any knowledge of common specifications for student computers in engineering departments, I would appreciate it if you let me know what they are.
Most schools have a web page for the computer. For example, see https://www.rit.edu/kgcoe/student-resource/computer-recommendations.
I don’t know about their computers, but a lot of my Eng Tech students are now using TI Nspire CAS calculators, so you will want to check on what they need in that line as well. Computer-wise, it’s generally more about the software, as MATLAB and Mathematica are often used in higher level courses.
If you want to buy a computer that will last 4 years and beyond buy a Thinkpad in the T Series. The 460 or 460s. Configure it with a solid state hard drive.
Here’s MIT’s recommended laptops:
https://ist.mit.edu/hardware/laptops
You could also look at the engineering school requirements for your or other major schools’ flagships to get ideas.
Am thinking about supplying DD with a moderate desktop and a Chromebook. She should be able to get a terminal app for the chromebook, use it to log in to the desktop in her room, and only have a lightweight $150 computer to lug around campus.
Do you anticipate sending the student to college with a laptop to last all 4 years or updating him when he finishes the 3 years at the LAC and heads off to engineering school for his last 2 years so he has the most up-to-date powerful machine for the engineering classes?
What one is advised to buy will vary depending on which scenario you are thinking of.
meh, I disagree. If the laptop is compatible with the most often used software, he should be okay. A lot of the more advanced software he would probably go to the department computer cluster for anyways.
This is very YMMV depending on the engineering student and the laptop initially bought. Many such students, especially those who/whose parents decided a budget consumer-grade notebook was good enough later found the need to get a second laptop when they found the first didn’t cut the mustard in terms of computing resources and/or in terms of longevity/build quality*.
Took a glance at the MIT recommended laptops in the PC/Dell brand. Interesting that all the prominently displayed models are from their corporate/professional Latitude/XPS/Optiplex line. No inspirons/vostros/dimensions here…
- I experienced this aspect firsthand back when I was an undergrad when older relatives who were engineering/tech professionals figured wrongly that a consumer-grade notebook was "good enough" for my needs. LCD died just after the one year warranty ran out right after finals thankfully.....and sometime near the end of sophomore year...the hard drive failed and the notebook was too slow/obsolete for new technology being used for classes/labs.
And the likelihood of notebooks/computers becoming too obsolete is greater with engineering/CS/tech students due to far greater hardware resource requirements of some software/lab equipment they are likely to use/need when the time comes.
Ended up using the part-time/summer job money from IT/tutoring gigs to pick up a professional-grade Toshiba notebook which lasted 5 years before replacement became necessary for professional reasons.
I have to disagree about the solid state hard drive recommendation. My kid had one and ran out of disk space. Having to uninstall applications to get your work done is not what you want to be doing.
Solid state drives are available in 1/2 TB configurations now, which should be way more than enough for a college student. If they’re filling up their drive with non-school stuff like games and videos, they can always pick up an external USB drive.
I worried about this two years ago and spent the summer trying to get my daughter to figure out what she needed. In the end she just bought a ‘regular’ laptop and it has been fine for the last two years. Civil engineering. She hasn’t mentioned needing to use the school’s computers for anything, although they are available 24/7
My nephew (mechanical eng) purchased a thinkpad and he really likes it (and I do too because it is small).
Check the Engineering forum at this site because this question is asked there fairly often. We had the same decision to make last year at this time. For our child we went with 256GB SSD, 8MB RAM, and i5 processor in an Ultrabook form factor. It worked fine for running Matlab and Solidworks for classes this year. I’ve been told in the Engineering forum that really complicated Solidworks designs may cause it bog down, but for freshman work it was fine. In our research, the performance difference between an i5 and i7 processor wasn’t big enough to justify the price difference. The HP we got is very similar in specs to one of the Dell XPS in the MIT link above.
The computer choice may be different depending on which type of engineering program the student is going into - for example, Computer Science vs Mechanical Engineering. The way technology moves, I’m not sure I’d worry about what they’ll need for the 4th year right now.
My kid had a 128 SSD which we bought late in hs, intending that it also be used in college, and it definitely wasn’t enough.