<p>I will be attending Cal Poly next year for Software Engineering.</p>
<p>Is it unheard of (or ostentatious overkill) to have a desktop computer in the Santa Lucia dorms? With at least two monitors?</p>
<p>I know a computer engineering student in North Mountain who has a laptop on some type of stand and a second larger monitor. His roommate has a the same set-up only a smaller laptop, not on a stand. </p>
<p>My son is planning on taking his Mac for a desktop and having a laptop or a netbook to travel with. I think you can have whatever you want as long as it fits on those small desks!!! You may also need to worry about the brightness of a large monito when your roommate is a sleep!</p>
<p>We were just talking about this today. My older son has a laptop and a netbook. He takes the netbook to class and to the library. It is much lighter to carry around. My younger son is going to CP and were asking ourselves if we need to buy both a laptop and a netbook or just a netbook and let him take his desk top to school.</p>
<p>Do you know what most kids do? It seems the netbook has become very popular this past year at colleges.</p>
<p>We were thinking that our daughter might have a desktop in her dorm and then have a netbook to take around with her to class and library. Since the dorms aren’t wireless it makes sense to have something more permanent since it has to be hooked up with the ethernet cable.</p>
<p>Wait. Don’t get anything until your son has had a chance to get the lay of the land usually after a week or so of classes. And then price whatever he wants at the bookstore which has some excellent deals particularly for Macs. (Search this forum for many great threads on the subject.)</p>
<p>softeng:</p>
<p>Check the CP housing site for desk dimensions to see how you might feel with 2 monitors. You might bring both monitors on move-in day, set them up, and, if its too tight, let your parents take one back home. In Santa Lucia, I recall the 2 desks are side by side facing the window. Both my son and his roommate set up a desktop and laptop on their own desks with very little extra space left. The desktop was on most of the time vs. the laptop tended to overheat. And the desktop was faster than the laptop. So, yes, the desktop was used.</p>
<p>Most likely, two monitors would fill would occupy all of the desk’s width and overflow onto the dresser (which is the same height). That doesn’t bother me.</p>
<p>However, I would prefer if my chair could be in the “center” of this arrangement: move the desk to the wall and have the dresser be nearest to the center of the room. Does anyone know what the university policy is for rearranging furniture?</p>
<p>The “Housing Terms and Conditions - Freshmen” document doesn’t address this to my satisfaction. It says I shall make “no alteration or structural change to the housing facility” but fails to define “alteration” and this surely isn’t a “structural change.” It also says that rooms and furniture may not undergo “remodeling, painting, or renovation” but doesn’t specifically say “rearrangement” and doesn’t specify what constitutes a remodel.</p>
<p>It’s not like the furniture is bolted to the floor, right?</p>
<p>Right. You can move your furniture around to your heart’s content assuming, of course, your roommate buys into your actions. For instance, my son and his roommate put their beds on top on each other and brought in a couch. Add a refrigerator and a flat screen TV and you’ve got a pretty cool setup.</p>
<p>My older son had his bed lofted. I am not sure that they do this at CP, but then he put a couch underneath.</p>
<p>Yeah, they’ll loft or bunk the beds upon request @ CP; at least for the Red Brick residents.</p>