[jmtulloss]

Having recently graduated with a computer engineering degree, I absolutely agree with this. Buy a small, powerful laptop that can run both Linux and windows, and you should be happy. Personally, I would also recommend the Mac, but Linux and windows are the two you need to be able to run.

Of course, every major university has labs that will have the equipment and software you need, so you can probably get away with whatever you prefer. I was more a software guy than a hardware guy, so I ran Mac exclusively and just used the lab machines when I needed to use Windows software.