<p>I'm going to be a student at UCLA as an Electrical Engineering Major this fall. For those of you who are currently EE Majors at UCLA or any other school, or if you know of anyone that is, is it acceptable for me to bring a netbook rather than a notebook or a desktop? Netbooks are extremely cheap and very practical, and I'm looking at this ASUS</a> EEE PC 1000HE, which is one of the more powerful netbooks out right now.</p>
<p>My only concern is that as an EE Major, I might have to run applications that require more powerful processors or expanded memory. Will a netbook serve me well as a main computer? All I need it for is word processing, internet, and basic daily use.</p>
<p>i know for the first 2 years of EE you’ll need it to run visual C++ for programming classes (cs 31 and maybe 32 if you don’t do ee biomed) you’ll need to be able to run remote access for matlab (ee 103)… as for the rest i’ll leave it for an EE major to answer 
but i don’t think there is anything else… although i would suggest if you use netbook bring your old desktop just in case you want to watch a movie or something :D</p>
<p>You might have a look at O-Matrix, [O-Matrix:</a> High Performance Data Analysis and Modeling](<a href=“http://www.omatrix.com%5DO-Matrix:”>http://www.omatrix.com) It has a much smaller footprint than Matlab, runs much faster, and works well on netbooks.</p>
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Probably not - but I do know a couple of engineers who do. They end up going to SEASlab (engineering computer lab) a lot to work on their projects (PSpice, Cadence, Matlab)</p>
<p>a netbook alone would probably not be enough. i’d get annoyed working with that small of a screen and slowness all of the time.</p>
<p>If you’re going to bring a netbook, bring a desktop for if you need more power/storage.</p>
<p>don’t get anything bigger than 13" or you will hate your life trying to lug that monster across campus.</p>
<p>and for the “need for speed”, it’s usually unnecessary. at most, a slower computer will compile code maybe 3-5 seconds slower than a faster one, so it’s not critical that you get the top of the line 17" monster gaming laptop for “school work”</p>
<p>I just got this EEEPC 1000HE (but won’t keep it for too long, it’s not for me, using it temporarily). Its portability and battery life are awesome and for now I don’t carry my laptop around anymore. Mainly because I don’t even do intensive work in class or in between classes. Now I do most of my projects in my room. I want to get a good desktop (and big monitor) + netbook (or 11-12’’ laptop) combination, just like MadeInChina mentioned in some other topic.</p>