Modern college students are digital students, their studies now and seemingly forever tied to computers and other electronics. Today, many universities are blurring the line between recommending computers and requiring them—consider what format instructors expect students to turn in assignment; hand-penned essays are long gone, printouts are the standards and online postings are creeping in.

In that spirit—and to keep up with the job market they will enter after graduation—Industrial Design students may be asked, or told to, buy their own laptops to use in class, depending on the language of a proposal within their department.

“You are competing with other students. It might not be apparent to some students that it is a burden not to have one,” said Paul Catanese, a Design and Industry (DAI) assistant professor, who chairs the department’s Computer Advisory Committee.

After several years of talking and a March 2004 poll made up of students and faculty members, the Committee is nearly ready to deliver a proposal to the dean to make laptops either a recommendation or a requirement to DAI students which could go into effect as early as next year.

“We are a liberal arts school,” Catanese said. “What field don’t you need a computer in? If you’re going to try to interact with the world as it is today you need one.”

The university has made computers available as widely as possible.

Today, there are 26 computer labs throughout the campus, all but nine of which are restricted to students from within the department who control the lab. When labs and the main library close in the afternoon, the John F. True Computer Lab just inside the library stays open 24 hours a day, offering 30 PCs and Macs loaded with a full slate of web browsers, imaging programs, word processors and office tools.

While Catanese is concerned with design students being dependent on computer labs, design student Christine Wagner said she doesn’t want to be forced to buy a laptop or bring one to school. She said she would much prefer to keep a high-end desktop at home, which costs much less than a laptop and instead use a large storage USB flash drive to transfer the projects she needs from home.

Dr. Robert Wall, an adjunct professor in Computer Science, witnessed the birth of computers in the 60s and their evolution. If someone wanted one in the 60s they had to order the parts from a catalogue and build it themselves. The process forced people to literally know the machine from the inside, out. The majority of today’s computer users have no idea how computers work internally because “they don’t have to,” he said.
“The current generation has grown up with computers,” Wall said, adding that this has resulted in a shift in focus from hardware to software. “You also take the TV set for granted and I suppose it’s just as well. People now are more worried about applications and what you can do with them.”

The advent of laptops has made the situation even more complicated. Wagner said she knows how to open her desktop, update parts, and fix hardware problems but is helpless when it comes to portable computers because they are far more complicated and minute, exacerbating the dilemma students face. “They break easily and they become obsolete faster than desktops,” she said.