Engineering School Laptop

Student Lounge College Life
1

Hello all,

I’ll be an engineering student next year at one of four colleges (Northeastern (accepted EA), Northwestern, WashU, UMich), depending on where I’m accepted. I’m looking to buy a new laptop to replace my 2012 Mac Pro. I’m a big fan of Apple and I’d be happier with a Mac; that being said, I don’t want to end up with a computer that won’t run the programs necessary for engineering school. Would I be better off with a different model, or would a new Mac Pro work fine?

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  1. All students are able to get free download of micro soft 365 through the school as long as they are a student, so you can use that to save $200 bucks.
  2. I am a programmer so i feel your pain. Macbook Pro should work for most of the software. If not then you can use the school's computers. Because believe it or not, there are some students who also do not bring laptops to college.
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Don’t use mac, especially since you are an engineering student. Go with windows.

4

A Mac should be fine for the majority of your work, and you can always dual boot windows if needed, which doesn’t work in the opposite direction. I believe Solidworks is the main program left that won’t run on OS X for most engineering work, while just about everything else will.

Via Northeastern’s engineering recommendations:

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Wait till summer before you go to college to determine what to get. Often the engineering dept of the school you attend will have recommendations or have vendors that sell laptops/tablets that meet the departments requirements. Usually there are a lot of sales the summer before your semester starts so you can then get a good deal.

6

You can use Boot Camp, Parallels, Fusion or a few others to run Windows programs on a Mac. Generally the better engineering schools will provide the software and hardware you need to complete your homework and assignments. For instance, at UMich, you can access virtual machines via RDP which are loaded with just about every software your could use for engineering - Matlab, Autocad, R, Mathematica, etc. etc. You can even select a VM with more power (e.g. 8 CPU, 32gb ram). There is a network with thousands of Windows, Mac , and Linux computers available for you to use too. Almost all of them have a base software load with most of the software you will use. You also get many GB of virtual storage so you are not stuck on any single computer.

My son uses his older (2012) 15" Macbook pro/1Tb/16Gb with no issues as a current Michigan engineering student.

Each engineering school will have a recommended configuration, so I would wait until you decide where to go before purchasing your laptop. Also weigh portability (e.g. Macbook pro 13") vs screen size and capability.

7

UM engineering have the software running on their server. You can use either Mac or PC to access remotely. Basically just a computer with a nice network connection.

8

I use a Mac and have boot camp to run Windows when I need to. Or I use my school’s Remote Desktop connection which works just fine. Matter of personal preference.

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I’m a WashU engineering student, and I personally use a Lenovo, but many of my classmates use Macs with little to no issues. If you’re already familiar with the Mac interface you’d probably be happier just sticking with it. I personally want to be able to access everything (like CAD and other programs that require a high graphics card) from my laptop, so I invested in a PC. It’s all personal preference, though; many engineers have Macs.