Students in the graduate programs of the USC School of Business Administration are required to have a computer in order to participate. If you do not already own a computer, we suggest that you purchase one several weeks before beginning classes, and become thoroughly familiar with its use before you arrive on campus. Faculty make assignments under the assumption that students own a computer with at least the capabilities described below. Furthermore, you will need to access the Schoolis electronic mail and bulletin board systems routinely to keep abreast of what is going on, obtain assignments and class materials, and communicate with your study groups.
Many students opt for the flexibility of a desktop unit, but approximately 50% own only a laptop-style computer, and 10% own both. About 18% use a Mac. For most purposes, todayis laptop computers have the same speed and essential features as desktops, but expect to pay a substantial premium for the portability. Desktops are easily enhanced at modest cost, whereas the opposite is true of laptops. Low-end laptops have limited multi-media capabilities, and you may find the smaller keyboards and screens (inexpensively overcome when at home) a problem on the road. But many students find the portability, particularly when doing group project work, well worth the extra initial cost. IF PURCHASING, WE STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU BUY A LAPTOP. Most importantly, you will be far less affected by constraints on School computing resources, and will be able to electronically access information from anywhere while away from campus.
If purchasing, we recommend at least a Pentium 75/Win95 or Power Mac 7500/OS 7.5.3 with 16Mb of memory. If budget constraints force you to keep your older 486DX machine, remain with Windows 3.1 and invest in more memory. Consider upgrading to a Pentium cpu, where you can then make use of Windows 95. A 28.8/V.34 modem is ESSENTIAL. Inkjet printers (cost: under $275) are fine for most work, and we provide laser printing (at $.10 a page) in our student computer labs. Many students find it more convenient to own a 4-6 page/min "personal" laser printer (cost: $300-600). Expect to spend at least $2,000 for a complete desktop unit ($2,800 for a laptop), including modem, printer, and software. Be aware that laptop pricing, model specifications, and product positioning changes roughly every 90 days!
Software: Windows 95, Microsoft Office 95, USC SBA-supplied software pak; Windows 3.1/MS Office Pro 4.3 recommended for 486
Options and additions:
Active matrix color screen
3-year warranty with 24-hour express repair/replacement warranty
External SVGA monitor, standard 101 keyboard, and port replicator/dock for home use; spare battery & charger
4X CD-ROM player and Soundblaster-compatible sound system
Software: System 7.5.x, Microsoft Office/Mac, USC SBA-supplied software pak for Mac
Options and additions:Software: Windows 95, Microsoft Office 95, USC SBA-supplied software pak; Windows 3.1/MS Office Pro 4.3 recommended for 486
Options and upgrades:Software: System 7.5.3, Microsoft Office/Mac, USC SBA Mac software pack
The School of Business Administration distributes a sophisticated suite of applications software designed to provide on-campus and remote access to information that will make your MBA experience at USC truly unique. The School provides most of the specialized software you will need beyond Windows/MacOS and MSOffice. However, the user support requirements for such a sophisticated interface force us to limit the brands/models of hardware for which we will provide help. We recommend purchasing only the machines listed below. We know these will work with our software. We have no recommendations for desktop computers; they are largely indistinguishable.
We do not support or repair ANY hardware; your recourse is the vendor who originally sold you the product. USC/SBA-recommended software installed on laptops NOT on this list, and any vendor-provided software installed, will NOT be supported beyond the most elementary level. It simply may or may not work with our software.
If you have an employer-supplied computer and/or work-related networking or other specialized software/hardware installed, the unknown technical complexities and liabilities associated with these units force us to decline to support such machines beyond consulting help for your company computer services technicians.
Whether laptop or desktop, we suggest you have your vendor set up your computer and install the modem on COM2, show you that everything is working, and provide for a 30-day money-back guarantee. We suggest you also ask the vendor to install MSOffice, as well as the SBA software, to be sure it will work with the new hardware. Although it will work, we do not recommend using an external 28.8 modem without a seperate high speed 16550 UART chip.
Recommended laptop computers:There are numerous places on campus where you can plug your laptop into the University wide area network. You will then have access to all the network resources of the University, the School of Business, and the Internet. To do so, you will need to purchase a PC Card Ethernet adapter (cost: about $150) for your laptop. You will be required to register the Ethernet address of your card, and you will need to authenticate yourself to the network each time you log on. Only the single recommended Ethernet adapter below will be registered and supported by the School of Business.
Recommended PC Card network interface cards: