Ghostshadow said:
i know for a fact though , if your studing online you wont HAVE to have a winslows machine , say your studding from cisco (cisco.netacad.net) it's all online , so you just study through your browser , no windows required ..
when i was studding for my CCNA , i had to do it online and i just logged in online , so like i could be on linux reading it and stuff , or be on the mac with out having to go to windows to study it .
This is true, but speaking from experience (I actually support a few online shools at my job) if you are not using Windows, you get no support for the site. Also, most of the software that instructors opt to use in the classrooms are Windows only. And most of these online colleges have their websites optimized for Internet Destroyer (IE) and won't work at all in any other browser. Some of them use weird XML parsers or just plain poorly written JavaScript that will not funtion in any other browser but IE. In fact, one of the schools I support doesn't even register a login when someone tries to use Safari or Firefox on a Mac. Oddly enough, it does work with Netscape 7.2, but no other versions.
Anyhow, if the school requires/recommends a Windows OS, as much as it may suck (hehe), then you will have to use it in order to effectively participate in your studies. And don't think that some crap like VPC is going to help in this case. Just use a Windows box.
And as mynameis pointed out, and I can agree with being someone working in the IT world, the overwhelming majority of the IT work is directed towards Windows, so it would seem rather counterproductive to use a Mac in this case. I just use Windows at work, and my Macs at home.