<p>I'm debating between windows and mac. Everyone who has a mac says really great things about them, so I want to try them out. However, there is a possibility that I will study engineering. As of now, engineering isn't very high on my radar, but it is an interest. I know that many college students have macs (perhaps even the majority?), but what about college students studying engineering? Do most engineering students use windows? Is it necessary to use windows for engineering courses? Is it even worth it for me to buy a windows computer for a major that I only have a small possibility of going into?</p>
<p>All engineering software is also available on Macs.</p>
<p>not all software…</p>
<p>indecisivealways, could you elaborate?</p>
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<p>hope that helped</p>
<p>I meant which types of engineering software is not available for macs? Is it software specifically for mechanical/chemical/environmental? Or software that is necessary for all engineering students? And in which years do engineering students need to use said software? Is it in junior/senior years, or immediately, in engineering intro courses?</p>
<p>What type of engineering?</p>
<p>For example, I’m in an electrical engineering / computer science program at my university, which is most closely approximated by computer engineering. For the CS parts, there is vastly more software for Macs than Windows because Mac OS X is a *NIX operating system, along with Linux/BSD/Solaris. For the EE parts, support for Mac and Windows are approximately equal. The result is that the top students all either use Mac, Linux, or BSD.</p>
<p>Yet, if you’re doing mechanical or civil engineering, the playing field might be more level, with equal support between Windows and Mac.</p>
<p>In any case, I suggest that you just go with a Mac and run Windows either via BootCamp or a virtualized machine if you ever truly need it. You get the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>I’m placing an order tomorrow for a 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.4 GHz i5, 8 GB RAM, and a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch tablet to satisfy VT’s tablet requirement. I plan on using Parallels 5.0 to dual boot to Windows 7 Professional. I’m all-around satisfied with my decision as of right now. We’ll see in the future if that stays true 
.</p>
<p>New to this thread…I have 2 q’s:
- For engineering is it necessary to have a full number pad?
I dont really know what type of stuff I’m going to have to do, so I want to know if it will be necessary
and - Is a 15.6" laptop too big to carry around campus? I’m debating between that size and 14"</p>
<p>yeah im wondering that question too
- For engineering is it necessary to have a full number pad? </p>
<p>i heard it’s good to have a big enough laptop screen size so that you can have 2 diff windows up so i was thinking maybe going for a 15" or 17"</p>
<p>Ha…engineering software on Macs? Good luck. You’ll probably need to run Windows on that Mac (whether Bootcamp, Parallels, whatever). Most engineering software you may use won’t run on a Mac.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any commonly use CAD Software (AutoCAD, Solidworks, Inventor, Pro/E) that runs on a Mac.</p>
<p>As for a number pad…is it a requirement? No…but if you don’t have one, you’re going to wish you did. I’d recommend an external keyboard for use in your dorm or apartment or house or whatever, they’re much easier to type on…but you can also get just an external number pad. Or a laptop with a number pad on it already. But you’ll definitely want a full number pad…the numbers at the top or the secondary “Fn” number pad built over the rest of the keyboard is very annoying.</p>