[duped]

Back in the day (a decade ago) you would go to the lab which had Autodesk/Solidworks/Matlab/Adobe/$expensive-software installed instead of buying it for your personal (and probably underpowered) device. It was one of the few things that your tuition actually paid for.

And you'd have to learn time management to make sure you could get your project done on time instead of crunching at the last minute, because the lab would be filled with people who didn't.

</grumble>

[wlesieutre]

Our lab used to let you remote desktop in for that stuff, but it was unreliable at best (especially during project crunch times) because anyone physically at the lab could kick you off your computer by unplugging it. Was still really nice to have if you were letting a rendering run overnight.

On the Autodesk side, they give out free access to student accounts, so I had that stuff both in the lab and on my home computer.