<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>You probably mean SQL, a widely used database query language, and UNIX / Unix, a family of operating systems currently defined as meeting the Single UNIX Specification of The Open Group.</p>
<p>The popular operating system Linux is a Unix-like operating system.</p>
<p>For some of things, there are perfectly good free alternatives out there, but for other things, the free alternatives come up short. For example, Octave is a free, open source alternative to Matlab, but it’s still fairly immature and doesn’t have nearly as many features. Therefore, the student version of Matlab is a great purchase. A regular Matlab license can easily cost over 5 grand depending on how many additional tooboxes you purchase. A license for the student version is a small fraction of the cost and is pretty much full featured.</p>
<p>Your son is using Fortran? In 2011? That’s kind of weird. I hope it wasn’t too painful (I hate fortran code)!</p>
<p>Son learned Fortran as part of an honors program that is open to all majors. It’s a way to introduce the kids to programming, even those not of the technical bent.</p>
<p>He learned Matlab as part of a high school enrichment program.</p>
<p>Correct, it was SQL. The major project, second semester of the honors program, involved C++.</p>
<p>SolidWorks was taught in his freshman engineering class.</p>
<p>Don’t discount old languages like Fortran too quickly. My computer science/systems analyst/programmer husband was unemployed after the oil crunch, and his knowledge of the obsolete Cobalt landed him a job that has led to a very good career. He no longer uses Cobalt in the job, but that knowledge got his foot in the door.</p>
<p>Wondering if purchasing student version of SolidWorks and ProEngineering would be redundant. Definitely getting the student version of SolidWorks so he doesn’t have to go to the lab to work on his project, but wondering if it would be worth getting the student version of ProEngineering would help him interface with his professor, who has ProEngineering on his computer, more easily.</p>
<p>A few years ago, I worked on a project where I had to port some legacy Fortran 77 code to C++. It’s a simple language (which is why they can easily build highly optimized compilers for it) and I think any programmer can learn it fairly quickly. READING Fortran code, on the other hand…</p>
<p>I’ve never worked with Cobalt but if it’s anything like Fortran, count me out!</p>
<p>FORTRAN was commonly used for formula translation in scientific and engineering programming, and used to be commonly taught in “CS courses for non-CS engineering majors”. Now, these courses commonly use MATLAB.</p>
<p>COBOL (assuming that what you mean by “Cobalt”) is a common business oriented language. Perhaps it is less common now for new systems, but many legacy systems exist.</p>
<p>Only one comment which I’m sure you know. Be sure that his personal computer will be able to run SolidWorks effectively. And that he will be able to email the program to his professor.</p>
<p>My D would not be able to run it on hers. Now you have exhausted my vast knowledge of computer’s lol!</p>
<p>Ha, ha, showing my ignorance with the misspelling of COBOL. </p>
<p>Good point, deb. We’ll have to check the “specs” before buying these programs. I was wondering if he’ll have enough disk space to have both programs, but I didn’t even think about whether he has the other requirements. I laugh when you say, I’m sure you’ll know, because in fact, I didn’t know. That’s how limited my computer knowledge is!</p>
<p>I’ve watched a friend running solid works on his laptop and it was super duper slow because his laptop didn’t have a decent graphics card. You should find out what kind of computer your son is using and what kind of graphics card he has in there.</p>
<p>Stick with Solidworks otherwise he will also have to learn how to translate his files across to a different application, and he will lose the ability to ask for help from the others at his research project. Student versions at student prices are great but…read the fine print. Some of this comes crippled (limited command sets), some comes time limited (1 yr), some watermarks “STUDENT VERSION” on all printouts. Not sure what Solidworks is doing currently, so read the legaleeze. I also agree with the comment on processing power. These types of packages are usually memory hogs and graphic intensive. </p>
<p>He will need an instruction set of some kind. You don’t just pick this up unless you are already skilled in another similar package and willing beat your head against the wall.</p>