Recommended Kit List

New students to UAL Creative Computing Institute often ask us what equipment we recommend before youthey start with us:

1. Your own computer

Having your own computer is not a requirement offor any of our courses because we operate laptop lockers at all CCI locations that can be used anywhere on that site, andas well as desktop PCs in open access and technical areas.

That being said, it is more advantageous to have your own computercomputer, as it gives you flexibility about when and where you can studystudy. as allAll our courses are part of a computing curriculum, so it'scomputing is our mainprimary tool.medium.

If accessing your own laptop is financially difficult for you, you may be able to access limited funding through the hardship fundfund, which kicks off after the start of each year.

We have advice where you can read more about buying a new computer.

UAL Diploma in Apple Development
Students studying onthe UAL Diploma in Apple Development youDevelopment, should choose a Mac as the Apple software development tools only work on macOS.

2. Reliable Internetinternet Connectionconnection at home

Read more about finding an internet provider.

3. Webcam, Headphones and Microphone

All our courses are taught in person; however, students generally prefer to attend tutorials with academics and get technical support from technicians online.

For this reason, we recommend that all students have a separate headset. The speakerphone feature picks up a lot of background noise from your computer and keyboard, making it hard to hear you.

If you already have some nice headphones for listening to music, many people like AirPods, so these will be fine, however, you don't need to spend this kind of money. Any simple "headphones with microphone" search online will find you headsets for a range of prices, some good brands include: Logitech, Sony, EPOS/Sennheiser.

Similarly for video calling it's not only nice to see a face, but to show people what you are working on, so if you haven't got a webcam in your computer, a simple low cost webcam would really help, we like the Logitech StreamCam because it's the best quality for the price, but cheaper generic brand webcams will be fine.

4. Software

WeThere don'tare recommend procuring anyno specific software beforerequirements yourfor course,studying asat youCCI. canWe use free and open-source software for teaching wherever possible.

All students are provided with access to Microsoft Office for365 free asof charge.

Students might occasionally use some other paid/licensed software, but this is not a UALrequirement student.in Othermost cases. Where necessary, we always provide free software wouldon-site beon course/yearour dependent.loan laptops and desktop workstations.

We occasionally use paid software: Max MSP, Ableton Live, and MadMapper. We also trysometimes touse avoidTouch commercialDesigner, optionswhich wherehas ita makespaid sense.upgrade for certain features, but generally, the free version is suitable.