Students who are planning to major in the geological and environmental sciences should have either a Mac (desktop or laptop) or Windows 10 or 11 system.
Due to the required software programs you will be using in the department, Chromebooks and iPads are going to be impossible to work with and therefore we do not recommend them as they cannot download software without considerable modification which will void their warranties.
The following software may be required as part of your GES coursework. These are all available through the Bookstore and/or Tech Support for free.
- MS Word
- MS Excel
- MS Powerpoint
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Google Earth Pro
- Matlab
- Endnote
- ARCGIS
- QGIS
- MODFLOW
- AQTESOLV
- PAST
- MATCH!
- R studio
You can run some (but not all) of these programs remotely through https://udesk.appstate.edu.
We also have Windows 10 desktop computers with this software available for all students. However, if you want to do work off-campus it would be useful to have a computer than can run these programs (particularly the Adobe suite and Matlab).