{"id":5307,"date":"2020-03-01T01:41:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T01:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=5307"},"modified":"2020-03-01T01:41:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T01:41:32","slug":"being-a-mac-user-in-eee-eie-first-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2020\/03\/01\/being-a-mac-user-in-eee-eie-first-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Being a Mac user in EEE\/EIE first year…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pre-Imperial Scenario<\/h2>\n

Back home in my international school in Indonesia, things were really different from Imperial in many ways. One of the most striking differences was the reputation of owning a Macbook. Would anyone here at Imperial even believe that my school in 2015 had actually proposed a rule “strongly<\/em> encouraging” (practically imposing) the use of a Macbook as opposed to any other device? A lot of parents actually complained against this new policy and drafted petitions against this imposition and as a result, the school silently softened its stance. Nevertheless, my school <\/a>has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished School for two consecutive terms (6 years). <\/span>Apple Distinguished Schools are \u201ccenters of innovation, \u200b\u2028leadership, and educational excellence that use Apple \u200b\u2028products to inspire creativity, collaboration, and critical \u200b\u2028thinking”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In short, this meme below captures essentially the mindset of most people in my school:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

At Imperial Scenario<\/h2>\n

The tables have turned quite dramatically for me after starting my course at Imperial. It was the first week of term and my programming lecturer conducted a poll on windows vs mac users. To my surprise, I was in a minority! It did make me feel a little proud at first as I naively assumed that I was in the ‘elite club’.<\/p>\n

A week later I began to feel out place. I realized that a lot of the software requirements for the various modules of my course we’re far more efficient for Windows users rather than macOS. I took it lightly and began to heavily rely on the lab desktop PCs to do all my work which involved software such as LTSpice<\/strong><\/a> (a circuit simulator used in the Analysis & Design of Circuits module), Quartus <\/strong><\/a>(programmable logic device design software produced by Intel). Luckily, Virtual Box<\/strong><\/a> (for the virtual machine which you would need to do all coursework related to C++ programming) worked (despite being laggy!). With this, I was now using two operating systems- macOS and Linux (through Ubuntu on my Virtual Box).<\/p>\n

The Holy Trinity<\/h2>\n

Weeks went and I realized I wasn’t able to work on lab software in my room and that I was too reliant on the college’s desktop computers. So one fine day I made a big move and decided to install Windows 10 onto my Macbook Pro, using the Bootcamp<\/strong><\/a> utility that lets you switch between macOS and Windows (clearly<\/em> showing that Windows is an academic necessity!)<\/p>\n

And now I have the holy trinity: Windows, macOS, and Linux<\/strong> all in one device!<\/p>\n

Best advice for prospective students doing EEE\/EIE:<\/p>\n