Because lab computers can be configured with all the necessary software and support students need to do work in an environment conducive to doing work. It's the software, support, licensing, environment, configuration, maintenance, convenience, peripherals, bandwidth, security, environment, and unity of purpose that's most valuable... not the physical computer itself.
I agree. Especially about the required software. University shouldn't expect me to install windows, matlab, indesign, full office, visual studio, etc. on my own box. It's also nice to have a reference machine - it's much easier to work with "project has to run on the standard uni boxes" than "it has to be compatible with X, Y, Z and compiled with V". At my university they reduce energy usage / maintenance costs by using Sun Rays - we can login to a unix, or windows server, or just get a simple mozilla-only session which loads in a second or two. Possibility to print something on the network printers (~10) at any time is also something I find useful. Amazingly, I haven't even found anything TDWTF-worthy about that setup...
Even though almost everyone has a laptop here, the library / lab (wifi available) is still full with people using the local computers to study (~200 places).
But now that you mention books... I'd be really happy to get all the books I need in pdfs, so that:
1. they're searchable / bookmarkable
2. I can print out those 2 pages I really need and not carry the whole thing around
Most of the schools I know about have a standard cluster of Unix machines which we can SSH into - and the rule is that programming assignments have to run on those. That seems fairly standard ...
Most schools I'm familiar with also let you set up X forwarding/RDP/citrix to their fancy cluster so you can get any app you need without installing it.
I see what you're getting at, but in the context of computers and computer labs, again: it's the environment of a preconfigured lab that's valuable, not so much the physical medium of the computer itself.
Likewise, a library, a bookstore, and a bookshelf are specific environments that could never be replaced by e-books ---even if / when society collectively concludes that e-books are a superior and preferred medium for consuming book-like content.
Is the preconfigured lab really that valuable in today's workplace? I would think that a greater value would be in students receiving recommendations on software and configurations and then letting them discover what truly works for them.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet: labs are valuable for the social atmosphere. At my school, there are grads and undergrads who hold hours at the labs, so everyone's there for those. The rest of the time, people can help each other out, shoot the shit, etc.
If you're stuck, you can talk to your neighbor. Maybe they're stuck too.
Unlike some other posters, I found it <i>harder</i> to get things done in the lab, because of the socialization. But it's a totally different experience to work on a project in the lab than at home alone or with a small group of people you know. It's much more like my experiences at work with an open floor, with people walking around and talking to each other.
[Edit: Ehh, how do you make things italic? I'll have to look that up.]
I went through university in the UK during the last three years without owning my own laptop. Had they not had computer labs, I wouldn't have been able to get any work done at all. We pay enough to study without having to fork out for compulsory gadgetry on top of that--part of the fees we pay are for the provision of facilities like computers. It might be OK for those with parental support, but I had to pay for it all myself and couldn't afford my own laptop while studying! (I had my own desktop at home in the final year, a hand-me-down bought from a friend for £20. I'm still using it to type this.)
However, they could perhaps shrink the size of the labs; there were rooms with 50 or 60 PCs all switched on, wasting energy displaying that immensely irritating advertising screensaver and two or three of us working in them. Perhaps they could even go as far as to close labs and provide students with laptops with required study software pre-installed, but that's cloud-cuckoo land stuff...
Stuff seems slightly different here (in the UK), at least based on what I've heard from students in the US and absorbed through popular culture (ha).
I didn't have my own laptop most of the time I was an undergrad, and although students these days tend to have them rather than desktops, I don't see that many carrying them around/taking them to lectures/tutorials. Certainly if a student I taught whipped out their laptop I'd be amazed.
I was taught computer science at a fairly 'traditional' institution where we learned from OHPs, Powerpoint and printed notes rather than live code demos that you could type out on your laptop and play with while the lecturer was talking. (I recently went to a tutorial day that was run like this and it was amazing; I'm not necessarily advocating learning to code on paper, but it does help you pass exams where you have to write code on paper..)
Anyway, without computer labs many people out and about on campus wouldn't have e-mail or 'net access, and as others have pointed out it let us run a pretty complex setup for teaching (ML and Java through some insane whacked-out emacs customisation; to this day I use vim as a result of that teaching). I guess the general 'labs as somewhere the general student body goes to write essays aren't needed' applies, but a nice quiet room full of the sound of people typing is a great environment to get work done, and at least at the universities I'm familiar with in the UK, there's not much room for laptops. Plus laptops have distractions on, and lab machines don't.
Labs are great for group projects, free printer access, a place to work on a computer so your backpack isn't 5lb heavier every day, a place away from your room to check your email(s) quickly, etc.
Laptops are nice for light computing tasks such as word processing, but there are a lot of applications that just aren't going to run well on a cheap laptop. There's also the issue of hardware failure, malware disasters, etc. Students are not, in general, competent sysadmins. The computer lab is critically important when your laptop's hard drive crashes two days before the due date of an important project. On a university supported filesystem, your data is backed up and the failure of one PC is not a problem because you can just use another one. Also, university site licenses for software can be cheaper than buying individual licenses (even with an student discount).
Power. Everyone may have a laptop, but the capabilities of said laptop will vary greatly. This isn't an issue for everyone, but it can be for anyone taking a computational / media editing / engineering type of degree. I can picture tons of students wondering why AutoCAD / Photoshop / Final Cut runs like crap on their $400 Celeron system.
Standardization. Dedicated labs provide the assurance that every student has the ability to use the same software on the same platform.
Software Licensing. Even if you could assume that all student were running the same OS / hardware platform, you'd still have to make necessary software available to all of them, which would be a licensing nightmare.
Laptop use works for very general purpose / light-duty work, which is what many college students do. So I could see the argument for making certain areas more laptop-centric (such as libraries). But at most unis, there will always be enough demand from those in more "hardcore" majors that getting rid of labs in general won't work. In fact, I've actually seen an upswing in lab use due to students buying netbooks.
Liability. Teachers always need to be able to tell students they could have gone to the lab. Otherwise software problems/failures because a real issue for each class.
wow. i almost exclusively used mit's athena labs when i was there a few years back. for computer science.
i have a laptop now and, working from home on my bed, think it's great.
the downside of laptops is that with greater power (and convenience) comes greater responsibility (and self-restraint).
* laptops are too often used for multitasking to the detriment of the work or social meeting at hand. doing homework while watching tv is less productive/enjoyable than taking each in turn. engaging with people who are alert in the world is easier than engaging with those who are working (or when not engaged with work).
* laptops make it easy to get into a groove and not leave until the wee hours...which is good as long as you're getting work done.
onwards with technology! let's also encourage thoughtful behavior, too.
The utility of computer labs is huge, there's no doubt about that.
What really surprises me is that only six out of over three thousand freshman ran Linux. Weak sauce! I guess coming from Carnegie Mellon University I'm used to a higher level of techno-centrism.
Why not create labs without workstations - that is to say, give students big monitors, keyboards and mice and let them hook their laptops & netbooks in. Would be a cheap experiment to run, not to mention the much longer upgrade cycle. I usually bring an RGB cable and hack this setup myself, much to the ire of lab admins...
Agreed. Instead of getting rid of the lab altogether just remove a few desktops and leave the rest of the setup in place for the laptops. Though from what it sounds like it's not the computer itself that's the major cost in the lab, it's all the support that goes into it.
When every student has paper, why print books?