Baruch MFE Baruch Programming Environment

[Prospective Student]

Hi All,

I just had a quick question about what the programming environment is like at Baruch in terms of OS / IDE is used. Do students generally program on their own computers with some flavor of Unix, SSH to school accounts, use Visual Studio or something else?

Thanks!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

most students use their own laptop which has Visual Studio. You can use GCC, Dev-C++ but VS is the mainstream tool.

 

[Prospective Student]

Thanks Andy! You may have just helped me justify buying a new laptop.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

In that case, get a Thinkpad T series. I think I'm responsible for at least 4 students getting Thinkpad T series

 

[Aditya Chitral]

amm.....and what if i dont have a laptop for first semester....

i mean....what about the facility in college ??

available round the clock ?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

There are about a dozen computer labs on campus (7AM-midnight) you can use but not having your own laptop before the first day of class is a real handicap.
Usually, the MFE students have their own lab and library and they work together on HW/projects.
If you have to splurge on any item for your study, the laptop is #1 priority.

 

[VladimirBunicu]

amm.....and what if i dont have a laptop for first semester....

i mean....what about the facility in college ??

available round the clock ?

If you have to splurge on any item for your study, the laptop is #1 priority.

Dear Aditya,
The schedule of computer resources are listed here
and you can also borrow a laptop for one to two days on the third library' floor
The majority of computers might have everything you need, like visual studio and SAS. They have Matlab on 6th floor VC building, and connectivity to Reuters/Bloomberg API in Subotnick Center.
However I have to agree with Andy on this, laptop should be your #1 priority :smt024

 

[Aditya Chitral]

thanks.

appreciate the prompt reply.

will really look forward to your advice.

thanks once again.

 

[Carl]

If you have to splurge on any item for your study, the laptop is #1 priority.

A relative is willing to give me a refurbished laptop. However, I'm not sure if it's up to snuff.

It's a Compaq Evo N610c. It goes for about $350 new online, but this one has a memory upgrade to 512MB (instead of 256MB) and MS Office Professional '03. It has a mobile pentium 4-M 2Ghz processor.

I figure I would have to throw in another 512Mb of ram (1 gig is its max) and a new battery, which would total about $150 as an investment.


Could this thing handle a new Baruch student's computing needs, or am I going to regret not getting a new one?


Thanks.

 

[DominiConnor]

1Gb is easily enough to run Visual Studio, and I wrote elsewhere, MS will give you their full pro development site for free. http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/02/21/free_microsoft_dev_tools/
Matlab will work in that space, so altogether I think you're OK.

Must be said that I would only take a Compaq/HP if it were free, under no circumstances would I ever recommend their laptops.