Computing, Will I Need A Laptop?

clubcrown

Barack Obama wrote: »

OP - you do NOT need a laptop to complete an IT course in NCI, especially if you have a PC at home. Forget about what the guy Ronan said about it being mandatory for lectures - the lecture theatres only have 4 accessible power outlets anyway and the lectures are presentation based.

The PCs on campus are fine but do vary - you soon learn where the good ones are

If you need access to a machine where you have a VM installed or anything else that you cannot do on a campus PC, simply install it on your home PC and use LogMeIn to get access to it remotely. Strange that someone doing Cloud Computing could not recommend a non-traditional solution to you. Then again, if shifting shortcuts is proving difficult... .

Just when you think a thread is settled.........

Some of the courses (including the cloud ones) *require* laptops for lab work and that is stated in the student requirements for those courses. In that case its not about coming up with a "non-traditional scenario", its a mandatory college requirement for those specific courses. We're not making that up, go check if you like.

Most of the rest of the courses do not require you to have your own laptop as such but it would probably be handy if you can afford one.

Its not that complicated Mr. President

Barack Obama

clubcrown wrote: »

Just when you think a thread is settled.........

Some of the courses (including the cloud ones) *require* laptops for lab work and that is stated in the student requirements for those courses. In that case its not about coming up with a "non-traditional scenario", its a mandatory college requirement for those specific courses. We're not making that up, go check if you like.

Most of the rest of the courses do not require you to have your own laptop as such but it would probably be handy if you can afford one.

Its not that complicated Mr. President

The reasons the guy mentioned can all be worked around with a little bit of thought.

Saying the word 'mandatory' in each of his posts doesn't strengthen his argument

skimpydoo

Barack Obama wrote: »

The reasons the guy mentioned can all be worked around with a little bit of thought.

Saying the word 'mandatory' in each of his posts doesn't strengthen his argument

I say mandatory as that is what NCI told us. I don't make up the rules so ask NCI. Also what course are you doing in NCI?. For other courses it's optional and as clubcrown said if you can afford a laptop then get one. One thing to note I never said they were mandatory for lectures, just mandatory for our course.

Crash Override

I'm going into 4th year of my computing Course and have worked for the IT department there part-time and I can tell you it is NOT mandatory. I didn't get a laptop til start of 3rd year and I barley used it for college work.

If you have a PC at home and don't mind staying back some days to finish work then you'll be fine.

MrsNice

It depends on what course you are doing. If you check the course description it will tell you if you need a laptop. Certain courses use software that cannot be installed on the college machines. For these, you need your laptop and NCI provide a virtual image with the required software.

But as I said this is only for a limited amount of courses and for most you will not need a laptop.