Usability of Macs on Campus

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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<p>I am a Computer Science Major who is on the verge of committing to RPI (I'll probably do so within the week or so), and as a result, I was looking at RPI's Computer Package over the weekend.</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, last year's computer was a Lenovo T430s, and that the previous computers have all been Lenovos. Currently, I have a Lenovo IdeaPad (and my brother a ThinkPad) and I've not had the best experience with it over the last two years; it's gone through two hard drives and six re-installations after crashes (four in the last year). As a result, I'm rather hesitant to get another Lenovo for college.</p>

<p>Over the last few months, I've been slowly gravitating towards getting a Macbook Pro for college, and it appears RPI does have an on-campus Apple Store (I think) but does not officially provide support for the "non-official" computers on campus. </p>

<p>I've seen threads on College Confidential about how individuals in the past at RPI were able to bring Macs to the school and use it, but none of them were for Computer Science; would it be advisable to bring a Windows laptop for CS, or would a Macbook Pro with Boot Camp provide enough computing power for CS projects, homeworks, etc.?</p>

<p>Thanks,
Aditya</p>

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<p>Macs would work, but the only thing is that you’ll have to either buy and install, or just install the programs for your macs. It shouldn’t be a problem.</p>

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<p>You probably already know but RPI’s laptop program includes a pretty comprehensive maintenance program. If it crashes or something is wrong with the programs they will fix it for you and re install programs if needed free of charge. They will even give you a loner during the time it is getting fixed. I believe the warranty program is for 5 years too.</p>