<p>I know it varies by college, but which ones have you used and what engineering are you doing? Did you get all the programs for cheap from the school and put them on your computer? or did you just use the school computer labs when you needed one?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Many major software vendors offer student / academia edition: MATLAB, AutoCAD, Microsoft, just to name a few. They are either free or offer at a cheaper price.
If not, there are other sneaky ways. Some softwares can be replaced by its open-source counterparts. That usually happens to CS students</p>
<p>The labs are okay if you need access to other things. For example, if you are EE, you probably want to go to the lab to do your lab because they have the equipments which you need to run the simulations.</p>
<p>Junior in civil engineering. So far ive used: autocad, auto cad civil 3d, a couple different GIS programs, and MAPLE for multi-variable and differential equations. I also use excel in almost every class.</p>
<p>What kind of computer do you run autocad on? Do you need a really good graphics card for it? I’m split between two computers. One has a Intel HD Graphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5 graphics card. The other has Intel HD Graphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB GDDR5 graphics card. Is it worth it to go with the first one or should I save money and get the second one?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Autocad, SAP2000, MS Project, Primavera, MS Excel, Matlab, HEC-RAS. I was a civil engineering major. Some were academic licenses, some I used in the lab and I bought Excel.</p>
<p>What type of engineering are you planning on studying? There are zillions of answers to this question.</p>
<p>Aerospace Engineering</p>
<p>I had my first engineering class today and I’ve already had to buy MATLAB, on campus they’ll have student versions of everything</p>
<p>You won’t use AutoCAD in aerospace. The big ones you will use are SolidWorks/ProE and Matlab.</p>