Hi I will be majoring in chemical engineering in a university and I need a new laptop. I heard a lot of people saying PC is a better choice for engineerig major, but I really want a mac! Would going for mac be a big issue? Also would 13" macbook pro will have a sufficient capability to run the programs for Chemical engineering major or would 15" be a much better choice? Thank you!!
Either would be fine. It’s really a matter of preference. If that’s what you want, get it. If you absolutely have to do Windoze this is the best way: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion. Good luck.
You can also check with the university you will be attending for recommendations. One of my Ds in engineering had a Dell supplied by her university. The other (also in engr) uses a Mac.
Check the minimum specs suggested by the school’s engineering dept. or IT, and you’ll find out that you do not need the expense of a mac or the firepower of an expensive windows machine. S will be a senior in chemical engineering next month and has a $600 Asus that has had all the firepower he’s needed. He’s running Matlab and other stuff I don’t understand (!)
You could get by with a Chromebook and using the labs, but he already said he wanted a Mac. I think he just wanted affirmation.
OP “wants” a mac, but for engineering one does not “need” a mac. OP, save your $$
You’ll get by fine. The only piece of software that is MS proprietary that you might need is Visual Studio, if you plan to take any serious CS courses. For one program, I think you’d be able to manage some form of Windows emulator, if all else fails.
The point is that he didn’t ask anyone’s opinion on whether or not it was a “wise” expenditure or “too much.” These are relative and situational. He asked if a Mac will work. It will.
@NeoDymium Aspen (process modeling) is Windows only
Not really the kind of program you would be installing on your personal computer, especially because they can be quite stingy on licenses. That kind of thing is always done in the university lab.
That’s interesting. Everyone at my University was strongly encouraged to install it on their laptops. Sure, you could go to a computer lab for homework/assignments, but professors wanted us to go through examples with them while in lecture halls. Hard to learn Aspen just watching a professor do it.
That’s the beauty of Mac, it’s Intel based, so it can do Windows just as well as any dedicated Windows machine. If it’s important to simultaneously be in both the Mac and Windows environment, then you virtualize with either VM Fusion or Parrallels. If you need 100% Windows performance, mainly for heavy graphical lifting, then you use Boot Camp. In a Boot Camp partition Windows will run exactly like it will on any other dedicated platform. You can run Linux too.
Now this is not me endorsing Mac as the “better” option. My ME son has a powerhouse @Xi that has far more graphical power than any Mac laptop. He routinely runs Solidworks and AutoCAD on it, but it’s overkill for most. His CS roommate has a MacBook Pro.
The point is, there is no perfect laptop. LOTS of them will get the job done. The OP wants a Mac and it will work just fine for him.