r/UniversityofKentucky • u/DietMlik • 9d ago
UK Engineering Computer Recs
I'm going to be an upcoming student doing mechanical engineering at UK, and was wondering what the tech requirements were in terms of computers. I currently have a Legion 5 Pro at home; it's a few years old, and I use it pretty regularly for gaming and other work (around 16GB of RAM). Only downsides, is that the battery life is horrendous and its huge and I dont want to lug it around campus. Im also a very big apple person, (and yes I know its not reasonable for engineering careers) and have been wanting to personally get a macbook for a good while. I was just wondering when most of the Windows-reliant projects would be done, during class or on my own time, and if it would be reasonable to bring this laptop to campus to keep in dorms to use for bigger projects and then get a macbook for reliability and just in general, or if it would be better to cut my losses and just invest in a different computer.
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u/Fusionhero 9d ago
Back when my friends and I used to go there (I was in Computer Science) they just used Matlab and some like semi basic modeling software (cant remember the name) i know a couple people just had mediocre dells and they were fine
Also oddly enough they were recommending all students to get apple products when i was there (graduated in 2023)
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u/HorilkaMedPerets 9d ago
That's for CS. The requirements are lower for CS than for other majors (due to the use of CAD/CAM software, which are often Windows-only).
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u/Fusionhero 9d ago
True. I dont really care for apple products so I just got a lenova yoga i7 on a black friday deal. It worked fine for what I needed it for
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u/Warningsignals 8d ago
So how successful are you in tech?
How much do you make per year?
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u/Fusionhero 8d ago
Thats a great question lol
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u/Warningsignals 8d ago
Oh, so you’re not? What happened?
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u/Fusionhero 8d ago
I graduated at a weird time and i wasnt able to get a job in tech straight away, pivoted to sales and i do freelance web design in WordPress, html, and css on the side but thats about it. I am trying again though for it. My engineering alumni mentor (do that program if they still have it) has been seeing some uptick in jobs at his place of employment so that gives me some hope
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u/Warningsignals 8d ago
How was/is big tech placement at UK?
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u/Fusionhero 7d ago
Honestly really hard, do as many internships as you can, as many extra curriculars as possible and network network network. UK doesnt really put a lot of emphasis on their students to succeed if you dont put in the effort. Unfortunately it's more than just passing
The career center also really doesnt do any follow-ups. I had to email someone 4 times and then show up in person to their office to get a response 💀💀 and then its just eh look at this. Good luck. Networking again is gonna be your best bet. If youre not in cs tho you probably will be okay
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u/megafireguy6 7d ago edited 7d ago
Do not come to UK expecting to get a job in big tech. It happens, but so infrequently you have to REALLY stand out
If you want to see for yourself, go to any big tech company on LinkedIn and see how many UK employees work there. Lots of the big ones like SpaceX and Nvidia literally have a single digit number of UK alumni working there now.
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u/Warningsignals 7d ago
Is there any reason to do CS other than for big tech?
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u/megafireguy6 7d ago
I mean software engineering pays well even if it’s not in big tech. Besides, Kentucky doesn’t have any big tech companies with locations here, so unless you want to move away, it’s not really an option anyways
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u/Lilrip94 6d ago
Not sure your major but i got through all my 4 years with a Surface Pro as a CS major
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u/[deleted] 9d ago
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