Best laptops for college students

Getting the most for your money

Surviving in college without a laptop in today’s technology-driven world is a complicated feat.

Most students buy a budget-friendly laptop, wait until they know exactly what will work best for their major or find something that will fit their wants and needs. When choosing a computer for school, there are many factures to consider.

Unless a student knows they will need a laptop which meets specific requirements for their program, most focus on the brand or affordability. The brand is how pre-pharmacy sophomore Lauren Miskel decided on her computer.

Miskel has a MacBook Pro, and it cost $1300. She didn’t have any software she needed precisely for her major, so a simple but stylish laptop was all she wanted. Miskel prefers staying in the realm of Apple with all of her devices and so chosing her computer wasn’t a hard choice.

Not every student is going to need to do extensive research for a laptop. Students want to make sure it will work for college or at least until they can buy a new one. Some students only focus on price. That is precisely what hospitality management freshman Darius Daniels did before starting classes. Daniels has a Lenovo laptop that cost him about $150.

“I don’t have to download CAD programs or anything, so my computer is perfectly fine,” Daniels stated.

Many Ferris students need computer-aided design (CAD) software and many other programs. This is why computer information systems senior Justice Higgins and welding engineering junior Jeffrey Revard both took their time and bought laptops that would serve them well in their programs.

Higgins uses a Dell G3 15 for their program, and when looking initially, wanted a laptop that was durable and had a lot of RAM. Higgins caught the usually $1400 laptop on sale for about $900, so they were able to keep to their budget and get a computer that will be able to handle software needed for the program.

Revard does need CAD software for his major, so he spared no expense when getting his laptop. He got the popular Alienware gaming laptop, which is $2200. Revard has had the computer for over a year, and it is working great for him. Not only does he use his laptop for school, but he uses it for gaming as well.

“It’s the perfect blend of CAD and gaming, where I can play games on it while at the same time design a 3-D port in a CAD software and then transfer that into a robotics program where I can have a welding robot go ahead and do welds on it,” Revard said.

No matter what type of laptop a student gets, as long as it fits their budget, their essential requirements and their pleasure purposes, Ferris students will be successful.