Recently my sister (and my sister-in-law) headed off for college. Since I’m a bit of a technology enthusiast they both sort of inquired about what to take to college concerning computers and software. I volunteered to call both of their schools to chat with their IT people and some current students in order to determine what (if anything) they might “require” in the way of software (and, subsequently, hardware). I was delighted to find that each of them (at their respective schools and in their respective majors) could happily use free/libre operating systems and software for their studies. While not always “officially supported” (though it should be in education — *finger wag*) they required no specialized software and no specialized computer power. Having that sorted out my sister-in-law happily installed Linux on her existing computer (removing her previous operating system entirely), but my sister had an interesting question: if you had to go to college again what would you take?
Realize that this is not one-size-fits all advice… but I told her that I’d want two computers. I’d want a reasonably powerful desktop computer in my room for graphic design, gaming, general browsing, media consumption, and other use, but I’d also want a cheap netbook for carrying to class, taking notes, syncing to the cloud and my desktop (via freely available tools) that wouldn’t do heavy lifting, but be convenient for many learning-based tasks on-the-go. I had two main tasks as a student: write/research and graphic design. Those two machines would (in my estimation) suit those two goals in the best way. The low-powered netbook would be too pathetic to do anything much more intensive than writing (I wouldn’t play games or stream movies on it), and that would keep me focused on school work when I was out and about. When I got home (or in-between classes) I could work on graphic design and/or do other fun things college kids do with computers (make a video? record a song? remix something? who knows?). At any rate, that was my thought. Current students: what would you have done differently?