Tech Policy
Laptop Requirements for Students
All new and transferring students are requried to have a full laptop to assist in productivity for their courses. Laptops may be a Macbook or WindowsPC. Laptops may not be Chrombooks, iPads, or other tablet devices. The minimum recommended specifications are as follows:
- Macbook: Macbook Neo, 2020 (M1), or newer, able to run latest version of OSX
- PC: Quad-core processor and 8GB of RAM, running Windows 11 or 10
Engineering Students
All Student's entering the Engineering program will require higher performance devices that are capable of running the Windows operating systems for specific engineering software. The minimum system requirements are as follows:
- Operating System: 64-bit Windows 11 or Windows 10
- CPU: Quad Core 2.5 GHz or greater
- Memory: 16 GB RAM or greater
- Disk Space: 128 GB or greater
- Graphics: Dedicated (non-integrated) 2GB or greater GPU, DirectX11 compliant
Why We Require Laptops:
1. Students in all courses rely on many online sites such as Schoology, TurnItIn, and GoogleDrive, which have limited functionality on tablets. In addition, many arts and science courses require specific software packages which cannot be installed on Chrombooks or tablets.
2. A full laptop keyboard encourages more organized and powerful writing, research, and note-taking workflows.
3. As a school that prepares students for college and workplace experiences, we believe students should practice using professional devices they will encounter throughout their lives.
We encourage you to have a conversation with your student about your household's expectations about responsible use of their educational device for school and home use.