Student Resources

Computer Requirement

Created by David Carlson
Last revised January 18, 2005

For further technical information, refer to the University of Florida's Computer Requirement.  For financial information, contact UF Financial Aid.

Introduction
Computers are an integral part of the educational experience at the College of Journalism and Communications and virtually every other discipline at the University of Florida. They have become an indispensable tool, just as the typewriter was to journalists, broadcasters, advertising executives and public relations practitioners of the past.

That's why the university has required that all undergraduate and graduate students must have access to a computer. The cost of this computer will be included in financial aid considerations.

The university has asked each college to determine its own computer requirement. To that end, the college's Technology Committee has, in consultation with each of the departments, set general requirements for students who plan to major in any area of study within the College of Journalism and Communications.

You will find the requirement below, but be aware that things in the computer world and in the educational one are constantly changing. Therefore, the requirement is an evolving thing. You can expect it to change as the power, price and quality of computers change and as the needs of students in the college change. We suggest you check back here frequently before obtaining your computer, and that you delay any purchasing or leasing decision until a few months before your official admission to the College of Journalism and Communications. Official admission usually comes at the beginning of your junior year or when you begin a master's or doctoral program.

Requirement Summary
The college's official policy on student computers is as follows:

"Computer requirements vary by major and may be updated. In general, students can expect to need access to and ongoing use of a near state-of-the-art computer capable of Internet access, printing to paper, and running recent versions of software for word processing, graphical Web browsing, database operations, statistics analysis and presentations. Some students, depending on course work,  will need computers capable of desktop publishing, digital photo editing, Web design and audio/video editing."

Also see the University of Florida's Computer Requirement.

What does this mean?
It means it is likely you will need access to a virtually new, fairly powerful computer with Internet access and printer at the time you are admitted to the College of Journalism and Communications in your junior year or as a new graduate student.

In most cases (see Telecommunication below for the exception), we stop short of recommending whether you lease or buy, whether you get a Macintosh or Windows compatible or whether you obtain access to a laptop, a notebook or a desktop machine. What's important is that you can do the assignments given to you by the faculty in your various classes and that you can submit them in the format specified by your professor -- on paper, on disk or via the Internet.

Windows or Macintosh?
The College of Journalism and Communications is largely a Microsoft Windows computing environment, with certain exceptions (see below). We have a local area network of some 400 Windows-based machines hooked directly to the Internet and the university via high-speed Ethernet links. Since the college and its instructors primarily use Windows and the Microsoft Office suite of applications, you probably will prefer to have a Windows machine yourself. This is our recommendation, especially since virtually all other UF colleges are requiring Windows-compatible machines. However, many departments at media companies operate in a Macintosh environment. If you choose a Macintosh, it still will be your responsibility to turn in assignments in a format readable by your professors.

Desktop or Portable?
This is a tough question. We expect that students in most disciplines in the university eventually will be required to have access to a laptop or notebook computer because of the expense involved in maintaining and continuously updating general-use computer labs. It is likely that fewer and fewer open computer labs will exist on campus in the future, and those that do exist may offer only network hookups, electric power and printing facilities, rather than actual computers.

This would seem to indicate that a portable computer is a good investment. However, for some students in the College of Journalism and Communications, a portable may be a poor choice. For example, some portable computer screen sizes and resolutions are inadequate for serious digital photo editing. Conversely, a student whose interest is in reporting or writing may be better off with a portable computer than a desktop model. Another advantage of the portable computer is that Weimer Hall and the college are integrated with the UF wireless network, allowing wireless Internet access from almost anywhere in the building.

Whatever decision you make, there are tradeoffs and there are no easy answers. We do recommend that you buy or lease a name-brand computer with quality parts and components, that you ensure the machine can be upgraded, that you seek as long a warranty as possible, and that you inquire about the company's repair policies and turnaround times. You will need your computer nearly every day, so weeks in the repair shop will be unacceptable. Our experience shows that Dell, IBM, Apple and Gateway make high quality machines and have strong records for customer service and repairs. You may be able to get significant discounts if you already are a student when you buy computers and software.

College Computer Labs
Equipping, maintaining and upgrading computer labs is a constant struggle. The college currently maintains computing labs in which students can do specialized work such as digital photo, video and audio editing. We also have labs in which students can do word processing under faculty supervision to create time-sensitive documents such as news stories. These labs generally are in continuous use and therefore available only during scheduled class time.

You can expect to be required to do all of your assignments and computing outside of the college unless there is a reason for you to work with a computer under faculty supervision or unless certain specialized software or hardware is required to complete the work.

We don't expect every student who takes a beginning photojournalism class, for example, to buy a high-end photo-editing software package such as Adobe Photoshop. If this type of specialized software is needed on an occasional basis for a class, it is the college's intention to provide scheduled lab access as long as resources allow. However, we cannot guarantee that there always will be enough lab computers for every student, or that we can schedule any open lab periods where students can work outside of scheduled class periods.

Our computer labs currently offer access to the Internet, to Lexis-Nexis and to the Microsoft Office suite of software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. We also have computers equipped with Photoshop, SPSS, Quark XPress and other applications needed for computing under faculty supervision. World Wide Web access is available, but students cannot expect to use lab computers for electronic mail.

Printing generally is available in various labs on campus for a nominal fee.

The Ideal Machine
The ideal computer may vary depending on a student's major or department, but it would be hard to go wrong with the following as of October 2004:

 

 Desktop Portable
Processor 2 GHz or faster CPU 1 GHz or faster CPU
Memory 1 gigabyte or more 512 megabytes or more
Hard disk 80 gigabytes or more 40 gigabytes or more
Video card 256 MB AGP or better 64 MB AGP or better
Optical drive 24x or higher, CD-RW and/or DVD or DVD-RW 24x or higher, CD-RW and/or DVD
Monitor 17" or larger, 1280x1024 or higher pixel resolution 12" or larger, Active-matrix, 1024x768 or higher pixel resolution
Printer 600 dpi laser printer 600 dpi laser printer
Sound Speakers or headphones Speakers or headphones
Modem DSL, cable or 56 kbps or better 56 kbps or better 
Networking  10/100 network card 802.11 b/g or compatible wireless networking
Removable storage 128 MB or better USB drive 128 MB or better USB drive
Operating system Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 or better or Mac OS X 10.3 or better Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 or better or Mac OS X 10.3 or better
Software suite MS Office 2003 or compatible MS Office 2003 or compatible

Should I buy or lease?
The college is acutely aware of the financial burden that any computer requirement places on students and their parents. We also are aware of how fast computing needs are changing and how fast technology is advancing; a new generation of computers is introduced, on average, every 18 months. Further, experience has shown us that many students come to the university expecting to follow a course of study but change their minds -- and their majors -- somewhere along the way.

With the various colleges, departments and even major courses of study having differing computer requirements, leasing a computer or even renting computer time may be a reasonable option. 

It is up to you whether you buy, lease, share, rent, borrow or otherwise gain access to a computer. However, it will always be more convenient to have a computer whenever you need it than to depend on a friend or rent computer time at a purveyor's convenience.

Changes in the Requirement
We will try not to change computer hardware requirement frequently, but we can make no guarantee. This document will be reviewed at least semi-annually, in November and April, and may change at any time.

Students should plan to acquire a new machine as they enter the college in the junior year or as graduate students. Such a machine should be adequate for the two years most students spend in our programs. We will try not to make changes that will require a student to acquire a new machine during that period.

Software requirements will change frequently. You can generally expect to need the latest versions of the software required in your various classes. However, it is up to individual faculty members which software packages and versions they use. You may wish to avoid making any special purchases until after the first class meeting.

Required Computing Skills
Incoming students are expected to have developed touch-typing skills and competence with computers and software before entering the College of Journalism and Communications. You are expected to already know how to use software for word processing, Web browsing, Internet access and the like. You also are expected to know how to operate your own computer and provide for its maintenance. Keeping your machine and its software in good running condition is your responsibility. College personnel will not help you fix your computer or install software, and faculty are not obliged to accept any computer-related excuses for late or missing assignments.

Should you need software training or computer repairs, there are numerous companies in Gainesville and around the world that offer these services. There also are adult education courses at most high schools and community colleges in which you can learn basic computer skills and software packages.

When specialized software and hardware is used in classes taught in college computer labs, faculty will help you learn to use it.

Specifications by Department
Computer software and hardware needs may vary depending on a student's chosen major.

With the exception of Telecommunication (see below), each of the college's four undergraduate departments and the graduate division have agreed on the college's general computer requirement, but each may have slightly differing software requirements, and students may find that even those requirements vary depending on their major course of study. For example, not all journalism majors need to own a copy of Adobe Photoshop or Quark XPress, but students majoring in photojournalism will want to own Photoshop and those majoring in graphic design will want to have a copy of Quark. Advertising undergraduates may be able to do the required multivariate analyses with a simple spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, but more advanced undergraduates and graduate students will need a copy of SPSS or SAS for data analyses.

Because of these varying needs, we suggest you do not buy specialized software for your computer until you actually begin taking classes in the College of Journalism and Communications. Things change quickly in the software business and often there are various versions and upgrades available for specific software packages. In some cases, the college or the university may be able to offer you a lower price for a required software package than you can obtain on your own.

You do, however, need to have a basic suite of software applications at the time you enter the college to do word processing, electronic mail, Web browsing and even basic data manipulation. We suggest Microsoft Office Professional, which includes Word for word processing, Excel for spreadsheets and PowerPoint for presentations, but you may choose any mainstream suite of applications you prefer as long as you can turn in your assignments in whatever format may be required by a faculty member.

Below are the specialized software and hardware currently in use in the college's departments:

Advertising:

Journalism:

Public Relations:

Telecommunication:

For all students majoring in any aspect of Telecommunication the faculty strongly recommends use of an Apple computer system with the video editing software, Final Cut Pro 4 and sufficient capacity and speed to use that software. While either a laptop or desktop version is acceptable, students might find the convenience of a laptop helpful.

Graduate Division:

Contact Information
If you have questions about the computing requirement or this document, please contact one of the following persons:

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