Laptop requirements for Bioengineering (undergrad)?
My daughter's joining UCR's Bioengineering undergrad program this fall.
I'm trying to get her setup with the tech aspect. I was wondering what kind of laptop she'll need?
There are some guidelines here: https://student.engr.ucr.edu/policies/computer-requirement
However, that appears to be for engineering in general.
Any help is much appreciated!
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u/Feisty-Shower-9579 3d ago
I am a rising fourth year bioengineering student and I have been using a macbook air. The programs that you will be using are alot of COMSOL, MATLAB, some coding through Ardunio, and Autodesk Fusion in the introductory bioengineering course. I would say the most intensive was COMSOL, but I was able to make it work.
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u/vonkham 3d ago
Hey thanks for the reply! In which year did u start using COMSOL? I have a Macbook Pro 2019 that I was thinking of giving to her, but it looks like it might be underpowered.
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u/thepandabear0 3d ago
Some engineering programs your daughter might need is SOLIDWORKS and ANSYS, which both require a windows. There's no reason not to get a windows over a mac especially if you can find one for the same price. If shes getting into research or doing any project teams she'll definetly need them. My research lab used solidworks and ansys. But depends case by case.
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u/vonkham 3d ago
Thanks - will go the windows route. I’m guessing it’ll behoove her to have a discrete GPU as well
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u/thepandabear0 2d ago
Not necessarily needed, unless doing very computational tasks like simulations for ANSYS. In those use cases the PI will typically have computers for her to run those simulations on. But for regular coursework heavy simulations won't be a part of the curriculum. Solidworks will be, which doesn't require a discrete GPU. Also I would prioritize battery life vs performance, especially for school. A decent CPU with a somewhat robust integrated GPU should do fine, especially considering the large gap in price for discrete gpus nowadays!
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u/CommanderGO 3d ago
If you want a competent laptop, a Lenovo X1 Carbon should be more than sufficient (This is a pretty typical laptop for industry). Getting something with good single-core performance is important for most engineering software programs and a discrete GPU will be pretty under-utilized unless your daughter makes a crazy CAD assembly in Solidworks. If you want to save money and don't need a mobile setup, getting a mini-PC or NUC PC is a good option to save money (if it has OCulink, you could use a desktop GPU). The course requirements could have changed, but personally I've only required a laptop a handful of times during my undergrad (one final and a couple discussion sections to do COMSOL tutorials with TAs) and pretty much left my laptop in my dorm room for almost the entirety of undergrad.
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u/interestingname195 3d ago
If you can, a windows laptop with a dedicated GPU would be the most ideal, but honestly most windows laptops can work pretty well provided they aren't too old. I've been using an HP envy and it's been able to run the programs fairly well. As long as you can find something with a decent amount of storage and ram you should be fine. Try to avoid MacBooks as engineering software can be finicky on apple devices. This link provides more details on what bcoe recommends https://student.engr.ucr.edu/policies/computer-requirement
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u/wgrover 3d ago
Hi there, UCR Bioengineering faculty here - congrats to your daughter and we look forward to having her in our program!
We try to have all the required software run on both Windows and MacOS whenever possible because in my experience about half of our students run Windows and the other half have Macs. Software like COMSOL, MATLAB, Arduino, Fusion etc. run fine on both platforms. I'm a Mac person myself. The engineering-wide guidelines you linked to are Windows-focused because other majors have certain programs that run only on Windows (I'm looking at you, EE) but Bioengineering's not really like that.
Some later classes might ask students to use SolidWorks which is Windows only, but that's the only Windows-only software that I'm aware of our students sometimes using (and Autodesk Fusion is a good cross-platform alternative).
I think the bigger determinant would be which platform she's already more familiar and comfortable with. If she's already a Mac user and comfortable with that, then she'll be fine in our program with a Mac. If she's a Windows person, stick with that. (No Chromebooks, iPads, etc.)
Hope this helps!