Computers are a part of life for any college student. So long as financial aid considers it part of the base expense, it isn't a hardship for anyone.
Don't be so sure about that. When I started art school, I was independent of my parents with an it's-a-paycheck job that just barely paid my cost of living. Grants didn't even cover tuition, and the last thing I needed was more debt. (It's not as if a BFA was going to be my ticket to riches after graduation.) Requiring me to buy a laptop (a poor value for the money, I might add) would have prevented me from enrolling. Period. I got by using the school's Macs for damn near everything, because all I had at home was an aging Win95 box with PaintShop Pro. I finally saved up enough to buy myself a PowerMac G5 just before graduation, using my student discount to give me the best machine for the money at the beginning of my new career... rather than being saddled with an obsolete laptop that I'd just be starting to pay for.
I have always used "ultra-light" laptops (thankfully the weight has shrunk as I have aged) because I am never carrying only a laptop and nothing else. What is this art college's minimum requirement going to be for carrying strength?
These are art students! They're used to carrying around tackle boxes full of paints or drawing tools, and portfolios the size of New Jersey. Adding a laptop, power brick, mouse, etc. will be nothing compared to all that.
Seriously, I have always gone for the smallest and least powerful laptop I could find. Battery life and portability are what I look for in a machine I'm going to be taking places. When I want to actually get work done, I use a desktop machine that performs better than the best laptops, for less money (saving enough to buy a li'l used laptop). These "high-powered laptops" that people suggest are neither fish nor fowl: too weak to swim well, and too heavy to fly.
You already had some "fame" gained from a time working through the conventional distribution channels to leverage when going DIY.
That probably helps, but so what? I don't have a shred of "fame", but I'm still taking the DIY route with my comics-creating career, because it's the only route that has any hope of succeeding. No publisher's going to support a religious satire like Captain Miracle or Fetus Christ by a nobody creator, so I'm going to publish them myself through my own Holy Comics imprint. And maybe when I've established myself, if some publisher shows some interest, at least I'll be able to negotiate from a position of being able to walk away if I want.
Slashdot Mirror
They will also like you if you buy them beer. :)
Don't be so sure about that. When I started art school, I was independent of my parents with an it's-a-paycheck job that just barely paid my cost of living. Grants didn't even cover tuition, and the last thing I needed was more debt. (It's not as if a BFA was going to be my ticket to riches after graduation.) Requiring me to buy a laptop (a poor value for the money, I might add) would have prevented me from enrolling. Period. I got by using the school's Macs for damn near everything, because all I had at home was an aging Win95 box with PaintShop Pro. I finally saved up enough to buy myself a PowerMac G5 just before graduation, using my student discount to give me the best machine for the money at the beginning of my new career... rather than being saddled with an obsolete laptop that I'd just be starting to pay for.
These are art students! They're used to carrying around tackle boxes full of paints or drawing tools, and portfolios the size of New Jersey. Adding a laptop, power brick, mouse, etc. will be nothing compared to all that.
Seriously, I have always gone for the smallest and least powerful laptop I could find. Battery life and portability are what I look for in a machine I'm going to be taking places. When I want to actually get work done, I use a desktop machine that performs better than the best laptops, for less money (saving enough to buy a li'l used laptop). These "high-powered laptops" that people suggest are neither fish nor fowl: too weak to swim well, and too heavy to fly.
That probably helps, but so what? I don't have a shred of "fame", but I'm still taking the DIY route with my comics-creating career, because it's the only route that has any hope of succeeding. No publisher's going to support a religious satire like Captain Miracle or Fetus Christ by a nobody creator, so I'm going to publish them myself through my own Holy Comics imprint. And maybe when I've established myself, if some publisher shows some interest, at least I'll be able to negotiate from a position of being able to walk away if I want.