IPad in college for EE or CS degree? | Hacker News Reader

IPad in college for EE or CS degree?

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8 pointskersny20 comments

As an EE or CS major, an iPad isn't going to cut it as your portable device. Like others have said, you're going to want something that can run IDEs or hardware interfaces in labs or at group project meetings.

YMMV, but don't obsess over being able to take notes on it in class. In my experience (Computer Engineering degree from Georgia Tech three years ago), professors will move so fast that you'll find a keyboard limiting. Engineering degrees especially are all about diagrams and graphs, and it's just not easy to get those into a computer quickly enough in class. This is less important in CS classes, but you'll shuffle through the same core Calc and Physics classes and run into the same problem.

Also, if you go the EE route, you're going to have to run Windows occasionally. Lots of the specialized lab software, board design tools, circuit simulators, etc just aren't available for OS X. Don't get me wrong - I love my MBP and finished out my degree on the first gen Core 2 Duo MBP running Parallels. But make sure you get something beefy enough to do that, and I'm not sure the 13" MBP is going to be future-resistant enough in that respect.

My advice - figure out how to afford a 15" i5 MBP, even if it means adding $500 or so to your loans.

Having recently graduated with a computer engineering degree, I absolutely agree with this. Buy a small, powerful laptop that can run both Linux and windows, and you should be happy. Personally, I would also recommend the Mac, but Linux and windows are the two you need to be able to run.

Of course, every major university has labs that will have the equipment and software you need, so you can probably get away with whatever you prefer. I was more a software guy than a hardware guy, so I ran Mac exclusively and just used the lab machines when I needed to use Windows software.

I've been out of college for the last year and a half so perhaps I'm already ancient, but I'd like to also recommend using a laptop. I used to carry my laptop everywhere I went, should be a lot easier now with netbooks. However, I would recommend using a Mac just because the sheer user experience of the mac (plus the BSD kernel) make it much more enjoyable and friendly experience. You're going to be spending a lot of time in the next few years pouring your soul into your laptop, choose one that makes you the happiest (for me, that was a Mac).

As for the Windows/Linux issue, I would usually do most of my programming at the computer lab or through SSH into a server. The primary reason for this was to be consistent with the grading rubrics used by the institution. With that in mind, your need for windows or linux is generally fairly limited.

Worry about it the month before you actually go to school, but I would recommend a good laptop. I don't think the iPad will have decent electronics sim programs and the like by that time. That stuff is handy in labs.

Labs can definitely be an important factor - I know I had to use make use of my USB ports in several of my labs (something the iPad lacks). Also, many universities require laptops that meet a certain criteria - I would also look into that for your school before purchasing one.

That's probably a good recommendation. While getting an iPad and a mac mini could be an interesting option - and you'd have a great opportunity to develop software for it in order to actually make it suit your needs - keep in mind you couldn't do any programming on it.

Get a nice laptop. An iPad will not be enough for CS/EE degree. I would argue it's not enough for any degree, but that's off topic. Get an iPad later if you want to simply because it's a cool device that seems like a good ereader/entertainment system.

My rationale is this. In undergrad and then graduate school many times I would sit with my laptop with the professor going over various problems. Impossible to do with an iPad. Many classes required X that wouldn't work on an iPad. For example, embedded systems required usb connection to the external HW device and then software support. Linux was required for many classes since the code is available to learn from.

In the end my optimal solution was a 17" MBP with linux and windows VMs.

Cross-posting my comment from the blog so the HN'ers can reply to it:

Mike's wrong on the "content creation" comment regarding the iPad. There are plenty of good apps for notetaking, drawing, even writing. I've switched from my MacBook Pro to the iPad for those tasks as it's much lighter. The soft keyboard takes some getting used to, but it's the same size (in landscape) as the external Apple keyboards, and it's plenty easy to type on after getting used to not having physical feedback. (I've already typed a 3-page paper on it.)

For a CS degree, though, there are a few downsides. The iPad doesn't have any good coding software yet, and you'll be doing a lot of that. Labs aren't a great solution, either. Do you really want to have to leave the comfort of your own room to do homework? My school (University of Missouri) has a Unix account for every student, and I've been able to SSH in to accounts there to do some coding, but it's nowhere near as good as having a GUI editor, especially if you aren't used to vi or a similar editor. You'll definitely want something with a traditional OS on it for coding purposes, at least for now. Who knows, in the future, someone may make a decent IDE for the iPad, and the point will be moot. For now, it's not a great option.

The "power combo" is an interesting idea, and it's pretty much what I'm doing now, but with a MacBook Pro in place of the Mac mini, as I've stopped taking my MBP to most classes, opting for the iPad instead. The only downside to this is that you're stuck without a laptop in the case that you have to meet with a group to work on an assignment outside of class. I don't know what college you're planning on going to, but the labs at my college fill up fast and most people usually end up meeting in a generic "commons" area and using laptops to work on projects. Like I said, though, you'll be fine with the iPad for anything except coding.

Depending on the way your school acts, an iPad may be just fine. I don't know the number of group projects you'll be doing and the order your classes will go in. In my freshman year, we had a ton of "fluff" classes early on, where I wasn't doing any coding. The iPad will be fine for those courses. Of your options, I'd definitely lean towards the "power combo", but if it's an option, I'd start the semester with just the iPad. Give it a few weeks, see if it's working out for you. If you've got too much going on, and you find yourself hitting the labs more than you'd like, add the mini. The reason for going without is to allow yourself to make sure you're using the full potential of the iPad, and that you aren't relying too heavily on the other computer as a crutch. If you end up needing that crutch, I'd stick with your current, busted laptop before giving in and buying the mini. Ubuntu's going to be a great for the early classes (assuming that your school will start with Java, like most do), and you may be able to eke a few more years out of the hardware. Trust me, the early years are not going to require a huge amount of processing power or memory. 1.6GHz will be more than enough to compile 20 lines of Java. :P

Conclusion: Start with the iPad. Use your busted laptop if you need to. Only if those two options combined are a problem, go for the mini. If you can hold out through your freshman year with just the iPad and laptop, I'm sure someone will have released an iPad IDE by then, and you'll be golden. People have started releasing web "IDEs" already, so it's only a matter of time.

No matter what, have fun at college. It's a great time.

Labs aren't a great solution, either. Do you really want to have to leave the comfort of your own room to do homework?

When I was in school, the lab was a great place to do homework because you could bounce ideas off your peers.

Our labs might have been different thought; we had a Linux cluster where the CS students hung out. The fact that the computers ran Linux was enough to keep most non-CS majors away, so you could ask anyone in the cluster something about CS and be pretty sure they'd be able to help.

Ah. That'd be nice to have, but our CS labs (also running Linux) tend to be full of people who don't like to talk to each other, unless they're in a group together. Guess it depends on the people working there.

Intensive document creation, like writing papers, is not well handled by an iPad at present. It syncs horribly, is not good for copying/pasting from other documents or websites (due to poor multitasking support), etc.

On syncing: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/file_sharing_with_an_...

Forget about taking notes in class with a laptop.

For some EE classes there is absolutely no way you are going to be able to take notes with all of the integrals, subscripts, superscripts, greek letters and strange symbols (but don't let that all scare you). The best way to get this all down is to write it down on paper, but I have seen some students do decently with a tablet computer (the kind that have a rotating/folding screen).

The other problem with a laptop (as another poster has mentioned, but I just wanted to emphasize) is that you will end up distracted. All it takes is for the lecture to slow down or someone to ask a silly question and the next thing you know is that the lecture is over and you're in the middle of some article about the next Apple product.

Base your decision on what you will be using your computer for outside of class: programming, maths simulation, circuit simulation, and lab reports. All of those can be done from within a Windows VM.

I am in college. The people who bring laptops browse Facebook. The people who take notes use pencil and paper. An iPad is a cool gadget but I think it will only be a distraction in class, not to mention I don't see why the iPad will be particularly good for a EE/CS major. Better to get a crappy old tablet so you can play with the innards.

How about no laptop? In my day (which was less than a decade ago) we got through undergrad just fine without having laptops. Pah!

Seriously though:

a) Take notes with pencil and paper

b) Give presentations sans powerpoint (your audience will probably be grateful), and

c) Work on your projects at home.

You can be "that weird computerless guy". I foresee problems only if there are group assignments.

How about a rock and a chisel? A computer is the tool of choice for a EE or CS major. If you're a EE, you will need a computer quite often for doing SPICE simulations, code development, matlab homework problems, schematic capture, pcb layout etc.

The computer for a EE or CS student is a third arm. Learn to use it as efficiently as possible. Computers are amazing tools!

I went through an EE program (took a bunch of CS courses too), and graduated in 2003. I didn't have a laptop through the entire thing.

A computer, sure. I had one in my dorm room. Laptops were nice, but not essential. I certainly hope that hasn't changed in the past seven years... it would be pretty sad if so.

(Then again, I also didn't have a cell phone during college, and now I have no idea how I got along without one.)

edit: To my recollection, when I was in college, the people who had laptops in class did email, wasted time on Slashdot, or played games. Seems like it was more of a distraction than it was useful.

Get a notebook. If you have to do presentations you might want to demo code in which case an iPad isn't going to be much good.

or a netbook, which would be cheaper and very portable. and if doing the CS/EE route, you can run a cool OS like the rest of the crowd: Linux

Get a laptop and fun unix on it -- linux or mac os x.

How about a PC laptop + Mac Mini?

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