- I was wondering if a lot of students have printers in their rooms . 13 cents per page seems very expensive to me. For $125, I could buy a laser printer with a high yield toner (2600 pages). That many pages would cost $338 on a university printer.
- I'm guessing most kids bring laptops and use wifi around campus, but in the dorm rooms do students use ethernet cables for faster connections or are wifi speeds pretty good?
- Is there a preferred platform (Mac or Pac)?
- Do rooms come with garbage cans? I did not see that on the list of things that come with the room. (Not a tech question - I know.)
- I'm guessing most kids bring laptops and use wifi around campus, but in the dorm rooms do students use ethernet cables for faster connections or are wifi speeds pretty good?
Yeah, I have a laser printer in my room that I use all the time. You need to print a lot of stuff - readings, sometimes essays, I LaTeX my p-sets so I have to print them out too. It’s way more convenient and cheaper.
I use an ethernet cable for my desktop but I don’t bother for my laptop. If you use an ethernet cable it’s [really really really fast](http://www.speedtest.net/result/6256768556.png) but wifi is fast enough for like 99.999% users. I like having the max speed cause I download terabytes of satellite images to load into X-Plane but I think I’m kinda an edge case…
Most people have mac but it’s a personal preference, doesn’t really matter. If you’re a CS major it’s mildly more useful to have a mac (native bash support!) but I prefer dual booting ubuntu anyways. Every CS class has that one guy that’s running Arch on their macbook…
Yes, rooms come with garbage cans.
Thanks @HydeSnark. Exactly the info I was looking for.
You can buy a duplex laser printer off amazon for $80 (wireless is $99). I just plan to ship it to my daughter’s dorm once she moves in during orientation week.
@CU123 Not sure which brand/model you were looking at but most printers come with only 1 starter cartridge that lasts ~500-700 pages. The price I mentioned ($125) includes the high yield toner. Now that I think of it, that price yields 3100-3300 pages (starter cartridge + high yield cartridge). Shipping doesn’t sound like a bad idea though.
My first year student anticipates spending about $75 on printing this year (taking 12 courses, 7 of which are STEM). She says some non-STEM kids say they spend about $50 a quarter. Almost everything she does has to be submitted electronically. She prints out some readings, but not all (e.g. those that aren’t discussed in section). For her, not wasting space on a printer and not having to worry about maintaining it or keeping supplies in stock, or storing it over the summer are all pluses. (I suspect I’d want a printer under the same circumstances, but this really may be more about how you work than about economics).
One other point: When I bought her a computer for college, I was anticipating her schlepping it everywhere and using it to take notes in class as well as for reading online texts. Well, as it turns out, UofC really tries to keep electronics out of classrooms and to get kids to read using paper-based formats. When my kid does read online, it’s typically on her iPhone and more a matter of looking something up than analyzing a text. Had we known this stuff going in, we might have made different decisions re what kind of computer to get her.
@exacademic Honors Intro sequence for CS requires you to submit paper (printed) homework. So don’t count on a STEM class guaranteeing that you’re submitting electronically
I didn’t have a printer my first year. My second year I got fed up and got a printer. It’s a quality of life improvement that makes a huge difference but you don’t notice it until you have it. No regrets - it’s so much nicer not having to deal with the printing interface, not having to walk to the dorm printer or the reg, and saving money while doing it. Even if I’m printing out stuff once a week, it’s worth it. Plus I’m keeping it my next two years and I’ll probably sell it off to some first year in my house when I graduate.
Yeah, I’d feel the same way! But she doesn’t. Really depends on the kid I think.
FWIW, I wasn’t assuming online submission was a STEM thing – online submission has been the norm for her other courses (e.g. HUM, music) as well. I think the STEM vs non-STEM differences are more likely to be a function of how many pages of readings you end up printing out.
We have an HP 1012 hanging around here - one trusty printer. Almost hesitant to part with it. They still make cartridges for it and my D’s Mac Pro (to be purchased) will be able to recognize it. So that’s likely what is going with her. We just buy re-tooled cartridges off Amazon for $10 so the marginal cost is minimal (plus I shake the cartridge to get a bit more out of it whenever it seems to be running dry).
Glad I checked this thread. Wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise!
My son’s suite of 4 people shared 1 printer and it worked out pretty well. Each of the 4 provided something for the suite they all used. There was a trash can provided for each student but they were big and ugly. They nested all 4 of them and put them away somewhere and each had a smaller one that fit under their desk. Wifi/ethernet/cell signal all vary tremendously by dorm. My son’s dorm had horrible wifi and cell signal, ethernet was better but not as good as he found in other locations. Bring a long ethernet cord to use around campus. The printer can’t be connected via wifi so bring a printer cable too.
Following up on dcplanner’s comment above about son’s dorm having horrible wifi and cell signal, what dorms have best/worst wifi and cell signal?
The newer dorms (Max, South, North) hopefully have been constructed with wifi/cell use in mind so routers nearby, etc. Guessing that Snitch, BJ and I-House aren’t as good. We bought a router for my older daughter in her older dorm at another college. My husband is planning to purchase one for D17 when she goes to Uchicago.
Wifi in BJ is fine. Earlier in the year, there were a few outages that prompted lots of bellyaching (especially by students who I know for a fact live in North/Max P). I was working in BJ and didn’t even notice until the outages were over.
@JBStillFlying I would double check with IT Services before you buy that router. This if from the student manual.
WIRELESS DEVICES
Students residing in the residence halls should be aware of specific policies relating to computers and networking in University House System. In particular, residents are not permitted to install personal wireless network devices such as Wi-Fi routers or extenders, to the campus wired infrastructure. See the Network Access Instruction on the College Housing site (http://housing.uchicago.edu/services_policies/housing_technology/network_access_instructions/) for more information.
North has the worst internet of all the dorms, lol
Idk about ethernet but the wifi is weakest and the building blocks cell signals.
@DunBoyer I was in the reg when it happened. It was only for like 5 minutes - it was not a big deal
Almost no cell service in Baker dining hall.
@Shrmpngrtz thanks for the tip re: routers. That was also the policy in my older daughter’s dorm LOL (another school). When they got there they found that everyone had installed a personal router. When in Rome (or, in her case, NYC . . . . ).
We’ll have to look into this more thoroughly once summer hits.
Thanks all for the helpful tips!