Incoming CE freshman here trying to settle the laptop debate before I buy. I've done a decent amount of research but want to hear from people actually in the program.
I'm deciding between a MacBook Pro M5 Pro (24 or 48GB RAM, 1TB) and a Windows laptop dual booting Linux. I'll be going in without a desktop as a fallback, so whatever I pick is my primary machine for 4+ years.
The core issue is that I don't yet know how hardware heavy I'll go. I might end up focused on software, systems, or AI/ML, or I might go deep on hardware. For someone who doesn't know that split yet, I'm not sure whether to optimize for daily productivity (Mac) or toolchain flexibility (Windows/Linux).
I did check with SEASnet and Vivado/Quartus are not on their remote servers, so FPGA work on a Mac would mean lab machines or Parallels.
For people currently in the CE program: what do you recommend for someone who genuinely doesn't know their hardware/software split yet, and what do you see most people around you using?