<p>My D will be a freshman engineering student next year, and currently has a 2011 MacBook Pro. Although we know, according to a Vanderbilt mailing, that she can dual boot this as a PC and use it, is she likely to encounter any problems? If so, are these problems bad enough to make buying a new PC worthwhile?</p>
<p>No, running Windows on a Mac is the same as running Windows on a PC. Plenty of engineers have Macs. The important thing is to have a high powered computer.</p>
<p>Pancaked, how powerful of a graphics card to you think is needed? The laptop recommended by the school isn’t that much for the price.</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t buy the school’s laptop, you can get a better laptop for a cheaper price elsewhere. </p>
<p>A powerful graphics card is only needed for probably mechanical and civil engineers who use CAD software. Even then, students are free to use the computer labs at any time that will have any needed CAD software installed in case they don’t want to/can’t use their laptop.</p>
<p>Anyways I don’t know a ton about graphics cards but really any modern NVIDIA or AMD card should be fine. I think I would just make sure the laptop has a solid graphics card in it and not just an integrated graphics chip, which will not cut it. My laptop has switchable graphics (between the AMD card and the integrated chip), and when using the integrated chip, it can’t run any of the CAD software at all.</p>
<p>S2 spend all of last summer on this issue. He researched as well as called and spoke to a number of people in the engineering dept and finally chose to purchase a mac book. He uses “boot camp” and has had no issues at all with his coursework.</p>
<p>Thanks maxsdad and pancaked–that’s very helpful. And thank your son for doing all of the research!</p>