<p>Hey guys, I'm starting to look around for a laptop to bring with the College Station. I'm going to go into Civil Engineering and I don't really know where to start looking in terms of computers. I've gotten some information about how you can get cheap software, but nothing about possible laptop choices. </p>
<p>To all you engineering majors, is there anything special that a laptop needs to be able to do in order to finish all course work? </p>
<p>If you guys have any suggestions, please drop a link. I'm all ears. I just need a basic starting point. I'm decent on computers, but don't know what to look for when it comes to them.</p>
<p>Here is a great forum that can answer your question: [What</a> Notebook Should I Buy For School? - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion](<a href=“TechnologyGuide - TechTarget”>TechnologyGuide - TechTarget)
Also try looking in the College Computers section of this forum. Unfortunately, I don’t know what kind of programs Civil Engineers use, so I can’t recommend anything.</p>
<p>There is no special laptop for an Engineer major, math major, international studies major, etc…</p>
<p>As far as getting the job done, most anything on the market would perform just fine. Whether it is a $200 or $2000 laptop. </p>
<p>What you need to do is set your price range, figure out what kind of hardware features you want, and search from there.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m going to be a Computer Engineering major, I’ve had for about two years now a $350 refurb 12" Dell Latitude D400 laptop. It was manufactured in 2003. And, it does perfectly fine for anything (professional) I may want to do. I’d even match my ability to multitask on this thing and get real work done to any “faster” laptop today. My point being, you don’t always have to spend $1000 on some latest piece of hardware to get college work done. Although, ignorant buyers do help drive the market. </p>
<p>I do recommend searching a site like newegg.com for the laptop that you want.</p>
<p>i would consider investing in a powerful desktop and then a netbook…</p>
<p>a netbook is great for email, internet, and notes…</p>
<p>while your desktop (plus large monitor) will be great for high performance jobs (programming, etc) and the monitor will ease your eyes for typing papers…</p>
<p>The type of laptop is pretty irrelevant, whereas the type of Operating System is a more relevant question. If you’re looking to buy cheaper student programs from on campus, I’d suggest a PC as it’s more flexible to the type of programs readily available for purchase. Plus, in upper level engineering classes the programs you run are usually on PC. However, a Mac or Linux-run computer would be sufficient in most cases as well. Many computers these days can run multiple types of OS’s anyways.</p>