College engineering Laptop

Kiko632 · November 2, 2024

I will be going to college soon and will be studying mechanical engineering. My budget is $1500-$2000. I don't know if a MacBook pro would be fine, because most engineering programs work on windows. But I could run a VM. I need help—something with a good graphics card and 32 GB or more ram for the work.

Thank you

TylerD321 · November 2, 2024

You want something thin and lightweight. Your college probably will have labs you can work in but it is nice to be able to work from your dorm or apartment. Are you in the US?

I would not go for a mac because many engineering programs require Windows. Are you going to use this to game outside of class also?

Kiko632 · November 2, 2024

43 minutes ago, TylerD321 said:

You want something thin and lightweight. Your college probably will have labs you can work in but it is nice to be able to work from your dorm or apartment. Are you in the US?

I would not go for a mac because many engineering programs require Windows. Are you going to use this to game outside of class also?

I do live in the US and would like something thin and lightweight. I want to have a seamless workflow.

JamesTheFolf · November 2, 2024

I think the best first step is to see if the college where you're considering going to has a list of software used by ME students. My college has one, so I'm guessing yours may end up having something similar. Here's the one from my college: https://techwiki.eng.ua.edu/index.php/Classroom_Software_List#Software_used_in_ME_Classes. Alternately your college will have a list of classes you'll need to take for your degree and you can look-up the syllabi for the classes you'd need to determine what software is needed for them.

If a list like that exists it can help you make more of an informed decision. But based on the software used at my college I'd recommend going with a windows machine, I say this cause I've had quite a few classmates struggle with assignments in my classes because their mac doesn't run the software properly. If you're going to be doing any 3D modeling you may want to get a laptop that has some sort of dedicated graphics.