Laptop Requirements for Undergraduate Students
CICS undergraduate students are required to have a laptop computer that meets the following minimum specifications.
Recommended Laptop Specifications
- Processor: Intel (or AMD equivalent) i5 or better processor, 7th generation or newer (Virtualization must be supported)
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or greater screen resolution
- Storage: 500 GB or larger SSD
- Memory: Minimum 8 GB of RAM (12GB -16GB RAM highly recommended)
- Webcam: Required
- Operating System: Windows 10 Operating System, Latest Mac OS, Linux Ubuntu or Mint latest LTS version of Ubuntu
- Wifi / Internet Access: Required
Hardware Notes
- Tablets such as the Apple iPad (even with a keyboard) are not sufficient for the Computer Science curriculum.
- 2-in-1 laptops such as the Surface Pro are acceptable if they meet the above recommended laptop specifications
- Chromebooks are not sufficient for the Computer Science curriculum
Software Notes
Every Computer Science course is different. Here are a few examples of software packages that students will be asked to install in various CS courses:
- Eclipse, IntelliJ, JGrasp, and other integrated development environments
- VSCode
- VirtualBox, Vagrant, Docker, and other virtualization and/or emulation environments.
- Java, Python, and other language environments
We take care to ensure that any software package used in a Computer Science course is cross-platform and available on all operating systems.
Many Computer Science courses require students to use Unix/Linux. Fortunately, both Mac OS and Windows 10 both provide access to a Unix environment that is acceptable. CICS also provides student access to our EdLab environment which is a cluster of Linux machines.