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Design student stuck: keep MB or buy MBP?

J

JustLikeYou

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 29, 2007
58
0
Hey everyone,

I'm stuck in a very frustrating spot right now and would greatly appreciate any advice. I am a Graphic Design student and for Christmas my parents graciously bought me a MacBook as a Christmas/Graduation (from community college) present. I have the 2.1 Ghz version with 1 gig ram and a super drive. I popped in a few new sticks of ram to max it out to 2 gigs. I run Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop and InDesign on it with NO problem. The money they saved on the MB went towards an external monitor - 20" widescreen LCD, which to me is the best setup for a design student.

I will be transferring universities in August, and the new school says that their design students are required to have a MBP and the Adobe Suite Master Collection because it also has After Effects. They only use After Effects in the last year of school. I have two years left.

They told me if I don't upgrade to the MBP, that I won't officially be kicked out of the program, but they claim I would have a "very difficult time" and "strongly encourage" the MBP. My question is - could I have a valid argument for keeping the MB? I know it doesn't have a graphics chip and all, but for what little time I'll be using After Effects, I don't see myself being able to justify buying a new MBP, especially since I JUST got this one. Oh, by the way, I'm a college student with very limited funds - so their requests seem a bit outrageous. Do you think my little MB will survive running After Effects? Or should I suck it up, try to sell the MB and take what I earn to buy the MBP?
 
yea i think it will; just upgrade the RAM to 4GB (can be cheaply bought for ~$70) and maybe get a larger hard drive
 
I think their justification is the graphics. I have a 20" iMac and when I use After Effects, its fine, but I can't do too much. Colleges might have some sort of money they get from Apple to promote the MBP, I don't know, but I think I would try using the MB, and if it doesn't work out, then you still can get a MBP during school year, shouldn't be too much of a hassle. I suggest you keep it and try using the MB, at least.
 
that sounds about the same with the program i'm in at another school. although they don't push the MBP, they HIGHLY suggest switching to Mac. . because all their computers in the program are Macintosh. personally, i think if the program demands that you have a MBP, they should furnish it. but that probably wouldn't happen, and if they did, they'd just tack it onto your tuition. but i'd say just bump up the HD and the RAM. sorry you're in such a silly position. . best of luck.
 
Yeah, I am trying to come up with a solid argument to present to the head of the design department to justify me keeping the MB.

Problem is I have an older version MB, the one JUST before the upgrades, and I'm all maxed out at 2 gigs ram... I can't go any higher. Will that cause more of a problem trying to run After Effects? I'm thinking I could get away with using what I have and when I need to run it, just run that program and nothing else to make it easier on the computer.

I just feel if I have to sell it, I won't get enough to get close to covering the cost of a MBP :(
 
JustLikeYou said:
Yeah, I am trying to come up with a solid argument to present to the head of the design department to justify me keeping the MB.
Click to expand...

Tell them that they sound suspicious. Tell them that if they so insist, they should help out financially. You pay as much as you can, but then the college should pony up the rest if they are so insistent that you get a MBP.
 
JustLikeYou said:
Problem is I have an older version MB, the one JUST before the upgrades, and I'm all maxed out at 2 gigs ram... I can't go any higher. Will that cause more of a problem trying to run After Effects? I'm thinking I could get away with using what I have and when I need to run it, just run that program and nothing else to make it easier on the computer.

I just feel if I have to sell it, I won't get enough to get close to covering the cost of a MBP :(
Click to expand...


If you can get a good price try selling your MB and get one of the newer MB's. Rendering may be a bit slow if you do 3D(it's slow on Imacs, so I'm sure on a MB it would be even slower), but for regular 2d graphics with AE, I don't see a problem. I run AE on a laptop PC with integrated graphics, and other than working with 3d graphics with it, it runs just fine.

Don't they have a COMPUTER lab at the university? I know the community college where I'm taking the media arts classes(for personal enrichment) has a lab with Imacs that you can use anytime it is open. (Also, if you make good friends within the next year, maybe you can bargain some time with their MBP's or Imacs when you need it just for those one or two classes :p)

That should shut up that Head of design person. Do they really think everyone can just go out and buy a MBP...especially in this economy?
 
If the computer is required for the program, then they have to give you some kind of financial assistance. This would probably be in the form of no interest loans through the school. But you would have needed to file a FASFA.

You should find out what the final output for video projects is going to be. If you are working on low rez that will go on a website, then you can probably get by with a MB. If they want something that will be displayed on large screen, then you're going to need the MBP. If you can't afford the MBP now, you could get by until your senior year then buy.
 
i indeed think it's silly that they're pushing it so hard, and not doing anything to help, financially speaking. for heaven's sake, they're dealing with college students! college students are poor. and for some of us, our parents won't pay for everything. . or anything in my case. i mean, it's not like you can march into the head of the design department's office and demand money to help you pay for this. . although that would be nice, i doubt it would turn out nicely. although their demand is somewhat feasible, it's still not very practical with a college student's budget.
 
mixmacface said:
i indeed think it's silly that they're pushing it so hard, and not doing anything to help, financially speaking. for heaven's sake, they're dealing with college students! college students are poor. and for some of us, our parents won't pay for everything. . or anything in my case. i mean, it's not like you can march into the head of the design department's office and demand money to help you pay for this. . although that would be nice, i doubt it would turn out nicely. although their demand is somewhat feasible, it's still not very practical with a college student's budget.
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat. I've had to support myself fully since I was 16, so affording college and computers and such is a difficult thing for me. I did fill out the FAFSA, and I got decent scholarship money, but just enough to cover the cost of my classes and books - not housing or any other expenses.

Thanks for the advice, and I do agree they should be helping with the cost of the computers if they require it... but they're not helping at all. Regardless of what they "highly suggest" me to do, I think I'm going to keep the MB for as long as I can, take up more hours at work to get some savings for a MBP down the road if the MB just can't handle it.

To answer someone elses question - there will be both high res and low res work in AE, but only ONE project gets displayed on high res monitors - and they only do THREE projects total in AE - hardly enough to justify the MBP... and almost not enough to even justify the $300 for the program itself. I don't plan on going into multimedia design when I graduate.
 
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