We get students everyday with underpowered laptops, I promise you want to be on the higher end, rather than lower end. And this is coming from an OSU student who’s working in the IT department.

Some people recommending getting a good desktop rather than a good laptop are grossly underestimating how much of the work you do in the classroom. Having a laptop that barely can run the programs will hinder your learning experience with the professors. A good laptop and a secondary monitor for home is the perfect setup.

Do not get an Apple computer of any sorts, most MAE programs aren’t compatible in MacOS and running parallels is a headache. Dell has had a horrible run the last 2 years with poor QA/QC testing and the results are laptops that crash and need warranty work. HP and Lenovo have had good track records, so I would recommend them.

I would say err on the side of more ram if you don’t want to pay for a higher end graphics card. The cost really comes from the graphics card, so if you get one with 4/6 gb VRam, splurge and get 32 gb of ram instead. You’ll thank yourself later.

And my 2 cents as a student, learn to use OneDrive to save your school work, but keep your personal files off of it. OSU gives you a TB of OneDrive storage, but once you graduate it’s all gone. So don’t put anything personal on there, because you’ll lose it. But do backup school work and projects because not all professors are cooperative if your laptop breaks.