All BFA Design Tech students will be required to purchase laptops. Each Bachelor of Fine Arts student in the Design and Technical area, and any other student taking any of the digital design courses must own a personal portable computer that meets or exceeds posted departmental performance standards. Students should expect to purchase an up-to-date version of Adobe’s Creative Cloud for Education and install it on their personal computer for most of their time in residence, either for design classes that require it or for production assignments as assistants and designers.
Below you will find links to the developers’ websites that detail the requirements that should be followed to ensure the software we teach will perform properly.
AutoCAD for MAC:
AutoCAD for PC:
Vector works for PC and MAC:
https://www.vectorworks.net/en
Photoshop for PC and MAC:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html
Lightwright for PC and MAC:
http://www.mckernon.com/lightwrightmenu/lw6sysreqs.html
Microsoft Office/Word/Excel/Powerpoint for PC and MAC:
https://products.office.com/en-us/office-system-requirements
In terms of hardware, students may choose either an Apple MacBook Pro or a Windows-based laptop with the following components.
Minimum:
Processor: 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
Memory: 8 GB
Storage: 256 GB SSD
Protection Plan
Recommended:
Processor: 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB
Storage: 512 GB SSD
Protection Plan
The Department recommends that students plan to upgrade their laptops over the course of their time at UCONN to compensate for technological advances. Students are encouraged to buy laptops and software from the University Co-Op’s Technology web site. It will provide students with warranty and repair services for Dell, Apple, Sony, Lenovo, and Toshiba laptops.
If students have any questions about hardware requirements they are encouraged to contact their advisor.