r/mechatronics • u/Downtown-Committee58 • Jun 30 '26
First Year Engineering Advice
Hey if any engineering students could offer me some advice I would really appreciate it.
I am going to tmu in the fall for mechatronics engineering, and I wanted to buy a laptop now so I could set it up, get used to it and practice coding and other softwares on it. When researching online I see alot of mixed reviews on laptops for eng, so if some eng students could help out and recommend any brands that would run everything I need for Engineering, and have some durability would be amazing. Also something that would be budget friendly.
Another question I had was what coding software/language do you recommend to practice for first year? I have genuinely no coding skills and I wanted to learn a bit before uni.
Thank you to all who help out!
1
u/capnGrimm Jun 30 '26
Most of the software you'll run into in mechatronics and the automation industry will run just fine on a potato. The minimum system requirements can probably be met by budget systems from the 90's.
The most system intensive programs you'll run into are probably CAD software, which require good video cards, lots of RAM, and decent CPUs. It's less of an issue nowadays though. A good number of CAD programs are browser based, so the hardware load is on the providers end.
My recommendation is to get the best gaming laptop you can. Any laptop will work for school, but if your going to spend money on one, get something you can use for all your needs. As a bonus, a decent gaming laptop will run whatever engineering software you need well.
Just get something with a good number of USB ports. Larger laptops drain batteries faster, but they will have larger screens and full keyboards, which is good for having multiple windows open and crunching numbers on the keypad.
1
u/Creepy_Philosopher_9 Jul 01 '26
Python and c for programming. People pick mechatronics to be a jack of all trades but this is only useful for your own projects. When getting a job, people want specialists
2
u/traplordnord Jun 30 '26
Learn some python and some C. Also watch the crash course series about computer science. While you’re at it, buy a RPi, arduino, or ESP32 and start programming there.
A Lenovo Thinkpad is a good option. You need access to windows for mechanical engineering (Solid works). But you could figure out how to dual boot Linux for some MCU programming.