<p>I have a laptop, but make large use of public computers. In fact, I’m using one right now! In that respect, I could probably get by with a desktop, but I’ve liked the fact that I could take my macbook on plane trips that I took during the school year, both research and grad school related. I think the big problem with desktops is that they eat up most of your desk. With the laptop, you can clear off your desk if you really want to use it for something other than websurfing.</p>
<p>Two people who started college at another school, my sister and a HS friend, both started school with desktops and bought a laptop by their senior year. To be fair, I bought a macbook after five semesters at Wellesley (I’d bought the HP machine December of my senior year in high school) because it wasn’t terribly portable, and I wanted to take advantage of the mac’s Unix roots (I did not know I would ever care about Unix when buying my first laptop).</p>