<p>Looking for recommendations- buying a new laptop for freshman son who will be in Aerospace Engineering. Thanks!</p>
<p>a nice dell xps laptop ;)</p>
<p>I’m a Chemical Engineering major and I have a MBP and it suffices to do all the things/programs required by Engineers.</p>
<p>can i use MAC?</p>
<p>Correct me if i’m wrong, but haven’t Dell’s gone down the drain quality-wise? That is at least what I have heard. Personally I have a HP and love it, I am not an engineering student though. You may be safer with a windows based system than you would be with a Mac because there is a good chance some of the programs won’t work on mac that you may need for engineering. I would talk to a current engineering student to see what programs are used and then see if they are compatible with Macs if you are considering them.</p>
<p>Computer choice is personal preference. My ASE son just finished his first year. He uses an HP -his ECE roommate uses a Mac. All of the software they use is available on both platforms. My son only used his laptop for writing papers for non-engineering classes, email, and facebook. He did his engineering homework and projects in the computer lab to avoid distractions. Many engineers use the computer labs for their engineering homework/projects -it is part of the engineering culture. A student can get by just fine with a good flash drive.</p>
<p>My daughter (communications) took notes on her laptop. It died in the fall and she replaced it with a netbook for notes and a desktop in her room. My son prefers to take notes in spiral notebooks and never takes his laptop to class.</p>
<p>If you wait to buy until August, you’ll find a lot of great deals-both with PCs and Macs.</p>
<p>I highly recommend a Mac based on quality experience if you want a laptop to last throughout your undergrad. I know some Engineering software programs require Windows OS but if it does you can always use Dual Boot on a Mac and run Windows</p>