Future Students

Engineering Rocks!

A crane crew manhandles giant 20-ton rocks onto a truck bed before hauling them off campus. The crew then replaced them with new giant rocks so that mining engineering students have something to practice drilling on.

CURRENT LOCATION: Future Students > Buying a Computer

Buying the Right Computer

The College of Engineering strongly suggests that all students bring a laptop computer to campus. These can be used in class for taking notes and working examples, and can be used in group work. The University of Arizona has extensive wireless internet access so you can connect any time you want from anywhere on campus.

When purchasing your new computer you should keep these suggested system requirements in mind.

Suggested Minimum Specifications

Core Duo processor
Windows 7 operating system
MS Office 2010 or 2007, which can be bought on campus
4GB RAM, 60GB hard drive, CD/DVD
802.11g wireless
Extended warranty, 3 or 4 year, including screen replacement
2GB USB Flash drive
Antivirus software
Backpack to make it easy to carry your laptop while you are on campus
Long-life battery, 4-hour minimum

The UA BookStores Computing and Technology Store has highly competitive pricing on popular hardware (laptops, desktops, printers, etc) and software (Microsoft Office, Adobe products, etc.).

The College of Engineering is part of the Microsoft Academic Alliance, so our students can get all Microsoft software free, except MS Office. We also have free College or campus licenses for:

Sophos: virus protection -- this is a must!
Textpad: text processing that is more advanced than notepad
MatLab: for math equation solving and much more; extremely useful in sophomore, junior and senior engineering and math classes
VPN: this allows you to connect securely to the campus network
OneNote: note-taking software from Microsoft Academic Alliance
SolidWorks: we can set this for your machine and get you connected to our key server
You can get this software either through

If you choose to purchase a desktop or do not have a computer there are many computer labs on campus that can be used by students. There are the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) in the library and smaller labs run by the Office of Student Computing Resources (OSCR) all over campus.

FAQs

Am I Required to Purchase a Particular Brand of Computer?

No, this is 100 percent your call. The UA Bookstore has agreements with many vendors and purchases through this agreement can be serviced at the Service Center attached to the Bookstore. The software that we have will run on Windows platforms, and we have significant experience with this platform.

Can I Buy a Mac?

Sure, but you will need to be able to run Windows software. So you must get the windows emulation capability. You can download a free copy of 7 Pro or Vista from our Microsoft Academic Alliance website. Even though the probability of a break-in to a Mac system is lower, you still should secure your system using antivirus and antispyware programs.

What if My System Breaks?

Regardless of where you purchase your technology, you can use the 24/7 tech support sponsored by the Office of Student Computing Resources, known as OSCR, which most people pronounce as "oscar". They are the first source of help. If the machine was purchased through the campus agreement, then you can also use the Service Center. Many students have computing expertise, but let's be careful out there. OSCR also runs the computer labs on campus and is a great resource for students.

How Do I Manage My System?

It is critical that you keep your system free from viruses and spyware, and keep up to date with the latest software and operating system security patches. If your system becomes infected, the network will detect this and disallow you access. Some of this can be automated and some of this must be done manually on a periodic basis.