It depends on what you’re studying. Some majors like accounting might require you to use Excel, for example. On the other hand, when I was getting my BS+MS in computer engineering, running Linux was actually advantageous

I did a bachelor of videogame programming in Belgium 99% on Linux (minus exams), but it was definitely a huge struggle. All the courses and assignments were Windows-only, and 90%-ish required Visual Studio (non-Code) and Windows-only libraries like DirectX or Win32. I got by writing my own tooling to auto-convert these to CMake projects and convincing each teacher to allow me to hand in CMake projects. I wrote SDL backends for most of the win32 assignments, falling back on clang's excellent cross-compiling for stuff that requires e.g Windows.h. I wrote a blog post about this: https://blog.allpurposem.at/adventures-cross-compiling-a-windows-game-engine And using e.g DirectX natively on Linux, easier than expected: https://blog.allpurposem.at/directx

I also wrote a small wiki on my general experience + a summary of courses and main problems encountered... Windows was non-negotiable during exams: https://dae-linux.allpurposem.at/ I maintain tools, converted assignments, and information on this for future students who want to attempt something like me, but it's hard to recommend the Linux challenge if you are totally new to programming!

Hope some of this is helpful!

Yes, except online exams. The online spyware they make you install for those is designed not to work on a VM or anything like that. I had to keep a barebones windows partition around just for that.

Yeah you usually can. LibreOffice works fine for most things. Some classes need things like Solid works that only run on Windows, and the remote testing software can be a nightmare. You might get an O365 license as part of your enrollment but doubt you really need it.

Protip; learn how to typeset your papers in something like LyX and integrate Zotero for citation management. The typesetting usually got me a few extra points alone.

Depends on the program and the professors. I'm doing computer scuence at CSUN, and I've gotten lucky, none of the online exams have required any proctoring software (rootkit monitoring software). They just do them in the browser.

I've been using it since high school. Never looked back. The only thing that bothers is annoying professors using privative software. But don't let them define your freedom. Work around "those specific cases" rather than suffering windows just for them.

I was studying computer science and at my University in Gothenburg all the lab computers were Linux. We had one course which required Windows because there was one software which never got ported to Linux which we had to use and it was a pain because only one lab room had windows computers and they were constantly booked.

Most probably you'll be just fine.

I did.

However I had to borrow one if the schools Windows computer for final exams because the anticheat spyware didn't run on Linux.

What are you studying? Windows VM should be able to handle any programs linux can't run.

I got through University running Debian testing. It was mostly fine, some Linux based subjects were way easier without dealing with a VM (they recommended against WSL for some reason).

However there were a couple units that absolutely required you to use Visual Studio (non-code), I occasionally used a VM, the Uni IT also provided me with a remote VM (there's a form to fill and and it's all automated). But I mostly used Rider, which for one unit it confused their CI and I got marked down for (otherwise got top marks so it's fine).

For office, it didn't matter. Group projects mostly used Google Docs, occasionally Microsoft Office where the online version worked fine. All my units wanted PDFs at the end anyway, so it does not matter that you used LibreOffice or whatever. Some units provided you with DOCX templates, I had no issues opening them with LibreOffice.

Edit: People are mentioning online exams, my Uni did 'online quizzes' which worked fine, and some had to be done in class on their PCs anyway. Final exams where always done on paper.

I rocked Linux when doing my CS degree. It was great, and I felt I had a much better learning outcome than my peers. It will depend on requirements from your uni. I had some trouble with my school's printers (but so did those running Windows sometimes), but we had a web interface we could use. And in one class the lecturer decided that we needed to use Visual Studio. We could use Rider instead but got no support from the lecturer, so I had to figure out some stuff myself. But it was a good learning process.

A lot of stuff was much easier for me to do than my peers. Especially terminal stuff, Docker and other stuff where they often used WSL or VMs. As where I had native tools

Depends on your course

It's been a while since I was in college, but I dual booted my laptop with Windows and Fedora for the first couple years then moved exclusively to Fedora. I even wrote my master's thesis using Libre Office.

Unless you come across arcane statistics software or bullshit "education" tools that only exist for Windows that you need, which is possible, you should be good to go. Even then, you might be able to use Wine or find alternatives.

So yeah, go for it! Keep the Windows VM if you want a safety net.

Depends on your major, I guess.

My university's CS program basically required GNU+Linux (as I've recently took to calling it). It was great actually.

Hopefully you don't have to use Photoshop, anon.

If the question is not installing Windows on your own hardware, I’d be willing to say “No problem,” for most circumstances. Not only are campus computers with required software on them, I’m sure you’ve got a testing center available for Windows mandatory exams. Also - I work in a modest community college that has a virtual desktop system available to students at no cost that has Windows and plenty of software titles required by various courses.

You pretty much need networkmanager for eduroam. If you are a wpa_supplicant enthusiast you need to swallow your pride. Otherwise no issues with using linux for higher education.

Learning Latex for your dissertation will make referencing easier, as an aside.

For my classes, certain ones required Visual Studios, but for the most part, you can just run that in a VM (or use JetBrains substitutes if you can). However, if you're doing game design or development, a VM might not preform well unless you have a GPU passthrough setup.

Depends on what you go for. I got my BS and MS entirely with *nix. There are some niche programs for specific majors which did not have alternatives and/or ways to run on *nix, so don't be disappointed if you can't find a solution.

I did, and that was a while ago. However, I would say that it would depend on what your degree is on. I had to do a lot of writing so it was fine for 99.99% of the time.

At one point all my assignments were handed in PDF format. A practice that I still do today as a professional. If you must hand in via Word, you may have some issues unless you run MS-Office somewhere. As there is always the risk of minor formatting issues.

For those rare times, maybe use their library or comp. Lab.

Try it and see. It depends on your professors and what software they want to use for class. I was able to get through college just fine on Linux, but a couple classes were made easier with windows, so I ran a VM for those classes.

Unviable for economics and finance in my experience. Excel is absolutely mandatory for these

If you don't mind using the computer labs (are those even still a thing? when did I get so old that I wonder if commonplace things when I was in college still exist?) or a vm for assignments where the professors require the use of MS software. Which is likely just the intro computer class they use to make sure the kinesiology majors know how to use office.

Of course, there's also learning management software which is universally broken, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of it still required IE6.

wine should handle most things not in a browser. in a browser you can switch the user agent or run edge/chrome if needed. ultimately its going to vary by school, class, and instructor if one requires something that won't run in wine. In my experience these almost do not exist because mac is very popular in academia. I mean if you take a photoshop or ms office course or such you may be expecting a bit much.

Currently studying Computer Engineering. I did manage to get most stuff working without needing Windows.

It came usually at the cost of extra work, but I'd say it was worth it. So far I even got to writing makefiles for C++ projects targetting some Atmel chip (Microchip Studio is Windows only). And in some cases I even found better tools than what they privided us with.

Unless you need some very very specific program or run into some wierd constrains you will be fine.

There are two potential show-stoppers.

1. Field-specific apps that only run on windows. If you really need Adobe Creative Cloud or SolidWorks or something like that you might be out of luck. This is mostly true for apps that require GPU acceleration, which is difficult to rig up in a VM. You wouldn't want to do that if it was a big part of your workload.

2. Mandatory spyware and rootkit DRM to prevent cheating with remote tests. Hopefully if they do such a thing they provide loaner hardware too. I've seen a lot of bullshit in my time but my experience is outdated, so I don't know what's common nowadays.

You can probably get by on library computers

I did History and Computer science and had no issues whatsoever. Most of my history work was LibreOffice writer saving to PDF or .docx formats. Printing, scanning, and using library wifi was always fine.

Computer Science kind of expected Linux, everything we did there was cross-platform already.

There are workarounds to almost every issue you may have. You can run Windows in a VM for software that requires it, or dual boot. M$ Office can be ran in a browser now. There is no reason to buy a license, just DL windows10 direct from M$ and never register, all they do is lock you out of some display options and add a watermark to your desktop.

i did

I have gotten almost 1.5 degrees running linux my only issue is Lockdown browser. Other than that 0 issues

Software engineering in Canada in the 2000s. Most of the labs in my university ran Linux, at least in the engineering, math, and science areas of campus.

Personally I ran, depending on the year, LFS (Linux from Scratch), Slackware, or Gentoo (which still lives on that laptop today but also it hasn't been booted or connected to a network in like 10 years).

I think there was only one lab with Windows. We also had a lab of Solaris machines but I bet those are gone now.

No idea what Law, Nursing, and other faculties in the other side of campus used.

Cannot speak for other schools in other countries (and I guess this question was targeted at colleges in USA), but I am currently studying Open informatics at Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Czech technical university in Prague and all the courses I have that are not mathematical, but require to use a computer do take into account that you may not be using only Windows, but also MacOS or Linux. I haven't yet encounterered a software that we would be required to use and wouldn't work on Linux, nor did I have to go through any more hassle because I use Linux, but rather contrary to that. In some cases using Linux made things easier and more straightforward for me.