<p>Should you bring a printer with you or should you just rely on the printers at the school?</p>
<p>i’m going to bring my own printer, just because it seems easier</p>
<p>I’d bring one. Printing in the lab gets expensive, quickly. And you can’t always print your final paper at 4 in the morning in a lab. You’ll want the printer handy for those last minute assignments.</p>
<p>It depends on you and the classes you take, honestly. Many classes are sensitive to going ‘paperless’ or at the very least eliminating unnecessary printing. The only classes in my 1st year schedule that required more than 5 pages of printing were my writing courses. Even then, I was only obligated to print ~40 pages total for any specific class (with the exception of one class). That only comes out to ~$5/class. But if you are majoring in a major that focuses on a lot of writing, a printer becomes very economical. </p>
<p>Like the above posters have pointed out, having a printer on hand is definitely convenient. UCSC unfortunately only has one 24 hour computer lab and the other labs open at ~9AMish (I think). If you have an 8AM class like I did and were making corrections until around 1am, you will feel pretty inconvenienced trekking across campus to go to a computer lab only to wait in line to print your paper and pray that the printer isn’t jammed. </p>
<p>Conclusion: Having a printer isn’t always Economical (in my case, I spent around ~$60 on a printer and only had to print maybe 200 pages total), but I believe it is worth it to avoid worrying about working around the computer lab open hours.</p>
<p>I hate printers >:(</p>
<p>I got a printer for free when I purchased my laptop, so having a printer was VERY useful freshman year. If you have a roommate, you guys can split the costs of ink/paper. Writing classes obviously require a lot of printing (core, writing 2, W requirement), but so do many history, socio, and psych classes. </p>
<p>However, it’s pretty easy to go without a printer if you have friends with printers. Several people on my floor would just ask nicely if they could print 3-4 pages and it really wasn’t a big deal. You just don’t want to become dependent on them because they can eventually say no or they might not be in their room when you need to turn in your assignment in 5 mins. I say get a printer that’s $20-30 (you can even find some that are free after mail in rebate) and share the cost of ink with friends (buy ink on ebay).</p>