Buying a Computer for College

Although the College of Engineering and Computing has a computer lab for student use, we encourage students to have their own computer.

Buying a computer for college can be a stressful experience. Most students would like to have a computer that will last them all four (or five) undergraduate years. The Miami Notebook Program also offers recommendations based on what each College suggests their students have.

Although students may generally use whatever word processor they wish, faculty and staff use the Microsoft Office suite. Currently enrolled students can obtain a free copy of Microsoft Office through our knowledge base (login required).

Specific Engineering Department Recommendations

Students majoring in MME, CPB, and ECE generally work with Intel-based workstations  running  Microsoft Windows for most of their assignments. Students not planning on majoring in CSE should consider Windows-based workstations as finding equivalent software may be difficult to acquire. 

For students majoring in Computer Science or Software Engineering, Mac, Windows, or Linux computers are all fine since the software used in those majors are generally cross-platform or web-based. Although students may wish to buy some software used in courses, many titles used within our division are extremely expensive and may require special training to install. Please see our Supported Software list, which will link you to the manufacturers' pages. Unfortunately, CEC-IT cannot offer support on student systems, but IT Services can answer many questions students might have.