5 Items Every Engineering Student Should Have

Posted in Lifestyle by Dan To

Here are 5 things every engineering student should have, I’ve only been able to survive so far with these tools. Good luck to all the freshman, and to all the other students, you’re almost at the finish line.


5. Smartphone


My smartphone has saved me so many times during the semester, there are times when you need to look up information on the fly, check for important email updates and generally stay in touch with classmates.


4. Decent Laptop


Never trust the computers at your school, ever, EVER. No matter how high spec’d your university’s desktop is, it will fail you, no exceptions, no excuses. When you run custom code or software on your laptop, you know it will work period. Last semester I had to resort to buying my own laptop and using it through my computer assisted design class simply because the school’s software wasn’t up to date and missing necessary functions.


3. Calculator


Getting a good calculator will save you a lot of time on exams where the final answer will matter more than the process of getting it. TI-83’s are carry overs from highschool and a common choice, however their function is limited to simple graphing and basic equations, TI-89’s are considered a decent upgrade that can do differential equations, however when I had to upgrade from a broken TI-83 I went for overkill: TI-nspire. My TI-nspire can do full blown out 1st and 2nd order differential equations, differentiate and integrate purely based on variables, and solve a stupefying amount of things, and it has a mouse/full keybaord. derp.


2. Physical Copies of Your Textbook


I know e-books can be easily found online for “free”, but seriously you need physical copies, more than likely you’ll end up playing Temple Run, Scramble, Tetris, or be on facebook than looking at the text book. Write and make notes in your textbook because more than likely you’ll end up keeping them after you finish the class and refer to them after you graduate or in higher level classes, except for the introduction to engineering textbook, sell that to a freshman asap.


1. Coffee/Energy Drinks


If you don’t drink coffee, how are you surviving as an engineer? Teach me your secrets and greatness D: