To think that not every university student has a laptop?

[hellokittymania]

People are incredulous that I don't have one. Surely I am not alone though.

I am a mature student and I'm doing the course online. Out of curiosity, especially if you are a mature student with a family or a full-time job, do you find it hard to relate to the 18-year-old students? I feel so old. 😂😩

[FinallyHere]

Absolutely agree, Ifailed, about the risks of keeping all data on one device, whether its a desktop or laptop. Again, I use a combination of an backup device and cloud backup services. As with screens and keyboards, I see no differences between laptops and desktops here.

A desktop would be differentiated by the ability to support some high-performance applications, eg CAD which require heavy duty processing, graphics and generally the ability to add cards and processing power. There are very few online courses which would expect the student to have their own access to this type of computing power.

[allegretto]

I have just finished as a mature student - without a laptop! Now they loan a laptop to everyone who doesn't have one on my course so they must see it as essential.

[UsedToBeAPaxmanFan]

The poster who said "desktops are for the over 35s" is wrong. Both my ds (aged 18 and 20) have desktops because laptops are not powerful.enough for gaming. All their friends who are into gaming habe desktops which are massive. Ds1 has a computer which is really tall, won't sit under an ordinary desk, but is the most powerful he can afford.

Ds2 is off to.uni in September. We bought him a new laptop for 6th form which I hope will.last through uni. He is muttering about also taking his desktop to uni but really don't think it will fit.

I can't imagine only using a tablet for essays etc.

[Saracen]

I can certainly understand why young students living in halls of residence would prefer a laptop. I am constantly seeing the poor kids schlepping all of their worldly possessions in and out of their tiny rooms in bin bags. They need something which is small enough to fit in their room easily, and light enough to carry away with them.

[TheFirstMrsDV]

I can't imagine writing essays without a laptop.
My typing speed is rubbish now but I can still do about 40wpm with pretty good accuracy.
How do you type thousands of words on a phone or ipad?
I would find it impossible to do if I couldn't touch type.

Laptops are not exactly top of the range in gadget luxury are they? You can pick them up for a few quid, the software costs more than a reconditioned one.

[silkpyjamasallday]

I had a MacBook Air but even that was too heavy to lug about, so I've swapped to an iPad Pro with a keyboard. Does pretty much the same thing as the laptop without the weight. Most people in my lectures had a laptop or tablet, though not necessarily to do work on, there was a lot of browsing Facebook and such (I sat at the back so could see everyone's screens)

[YellowPrimula]

I am a mature student doing an MA , I have a MacBook Air but it's not the most recent and I still find it quite heavy to lug about for research etc Cannot imagine writing essay or dissertation on a tablet especially a mini one , does turnitin even work on a tablet? I am considering an iPad Pro with keyboard for next year though , simply for portability for seminars etc , although to be honest I like manual notes for lectures etc .

We bought ds1 a MacBook fromuniversity , that was 6 years ago and it's still going strong despite having a few adventures 😀

[WinifredAtwellsOtherPiano]

Possibly hellokitty uses speech to text for essays - at which point the quality and size of the keyboard is less relevant.

[caffeinestream]

I couldn't have done my degree without a laptop! I graduated in 2011 and don't know anyone who didn't have either a laptop or a desktop in their rooms.

[SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed]

I was also going to say a lot of under 35s will have desktops, serious gamers will use them, and some courses will use software that will only run on a higher spec machine.

I'm a mature student, I have a desktop, a tablet and a larger tablet with an integrated keyboard which I take to lectures and use if I'm working in the library. No way would I want to try writing an essay on an iPad.

[corythatwas]

Agree that it would be difficult to work without a desktop/laptop to write essays on.

But all of you who say you can't take lecture notes without typing - you do realise that this is a specific listening skill rather than writing skill? I am often a bit worried about the inefficient way students work in exams (where I see the rough notes afterwards): it looks like they haven't really been taught to take notes properly, they just write everything down.

[LockedOutOfMN]

I would be surprised if someone pursuing a university course didn't have a computer of any kind, (meaning a laptop or a desktop). Surely the point of laptops is that they're portable, for physically attending lectures and classes and working in libraries, so as the OP is doing an online course she doesn't necessarily need a portable device. A desktop sounds more suitable for OP's needs and, as other posters have said, may well have a higher spec. than many standard laptops.

[Addley]

Student Finance England believe that it's the norm for students to have laptops. Disabled Students' Allowance now requires that people who need a laptop to run disability-related software pay the first £200 towards the laptop the DSA assessor recommends for the student, on the basis that they'd be having to buy a laptop anyway (even if they already have a laptop which a non-disabled student would do fine with but which won't run the software).

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

That's depressing, addley.

I know quite a lot of my students don't have laptops. A very few have neither laptops nor desktops and have to use the computer room. It does make life a bit more tricky for them.

[OhSoggyBiscuit]

I'm not in/haven't been to university, but I have both because my desktop's for gaming (£400 for a desktop vs £1000 for a gaming laptop!) and my laptop's for sitting in front of the tv browsing the net or taking with me when travelling.

[hellokittymania]

I do a lot of things orally when I do attend classes. A lot of my exams were given to me or early when I was a high school student. Although I don't have the greatest memory, what I do when I take notes is a right down the key parts that I need to know. I certainly don't write Word for Word or large chunks of material. I speak quite a few languages So just use the same techniques that I use for remembering the languages.

I just found out yesterday that there is something called a braille input Keyboard available on the iPad. I am going to give it a go. Frail has a lot of contractions so for example if you want to write the word can, you just write the letter C. If you want to write The word for braille, you write the letters BRL. what you write though appears in print as the word in its entirety.

I also use dictation a lot on my iPad.

[ProseccoandPizza]

Mature student (31) with a DS and step children. My business studies degree class is very small (through a partner college) and I'm the only one who isn't a teenager. Some days it's painful as they mostly expect to be spoon fed and take a lot longer to understand a concept with little relevant expereince.

[Groupie123]

I'm dyslexic and can touch time - ALL my notes are typed on my laptop

[CancellyMcChequeface]

I'm a mature student (30) and have just finished my degree. I have a laptop, which I brought along with me for the first few weeks but then stopped. The laptop was heavy and I never got to sit at a table and use it during my long commute, as I'd hoped to! It was useful for reading articles/doing internet searches at university, but I could do that just as well on the university computers. All of my writing I did on the desktop computer at home - I needed the full-sized keyboard!

I took notes in lectures by hand and noticed that a lot of the younger students used phones or tablets for that instead.

[Crinkle77]

I had this at an Open Day at our uni. I was giving guided tours and explained that we do self-service laptop loans. This parent asked why and I said that it means students can access facilities 24/7 when the desk is closed. He was a bit off and said yeah but I don't get why you offer laptops, surely students have their own. I just said well not everyone can afford one or theirs might break and need to borrow one at short notice. Seemed to shut him up.

[museumum]

Are you writing essays longhand?
TBH I don't think the uni I teach at Is set up for students not to have their own computer.
I studied in the days of longhand drafts then typing up in computer rooms but it's expected these days that students have a computer yes.