<p>Well the premed student WILL have to take freshman seminars and distribution requirements...and still have to write up lab reports.</p>
<p>Free alternatives like NeoOffice, ThinkFree, and Google Docs are certainly adequate for simple word processing, etc.</p>
<p>What other people use their computer for will depend entirely on them...I imagine most people have email, AIM, iTunes, web browser...i myself also use a calendar program to keep track of all my stuff. The Mac also comes with great programs for photo collections/editing, movie-making, etc.</p>
<p>But unless you find yourself suddenly wanting to get into hardcore 3D gaming, even the lowest-end MacBook will be more than powerful enough for anything you throw at it ;)</p>
<p>You can usually find the student version of Office at the bookstore for 100 or less. As time goes on, it's nice to have the same programs that your partners and peers are using.</p>
<p>Penn generally recommends buying the most powerful computer you can afford. When you're buying before freshman year, you've got to think of this computer as lasting for a few years, maybe even all 4. In this consideration, some people go for what may seem to be a very powerful computer when they buy it, so that they can get more use out of it down the road before obsolescence.</p>
<p>OOffice.org is OpenOffice, which is indeed as good as PhatAlbert says.</p>
<p>However if you have a Mac and want to use OpenOffice, I would definitely recommend that you instead use NeoOffice (neooffice.org). It is based on the code for OpenOffice, but optimized for Mac OS, making it feel much more Mac-like, while retaining all the features of OpenOffice.</p>
<p>I heard that the engineering students get free windows. I dunno how it is distributed tho over the network possibly? Is there anyway to use this for bootcamp? B/c i'm guessing you need the actual cd.</p>