If they hit a snag, they can plug into the data switch the university provides for all dorm phones to link up with experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or virtually anywhere. Closer to home, any student with a computer can use the same data link to scan the archives of the Newman Library for material to improve an assignment. Todd Hoots, a business management major, likes to exchange computer data or programs with a buddy while the two talk over his university-installed phone at the same time. He also frequently uses the Virginia Tech Library Systems, but when he is more in the mood for some entertainment, he climbs into his computer's version of a submarine and wages underwater battle with a friend down the hall or across campus. Computers made their first visible impact on the Virginia Tech campus in 1984 when the College of Engineering started requiring its majors to own one, thereby eliminating the need to traipse across campus at 3 a.m. to use the computer lab and immediately increasing the students' exposure to computer use.
Some professors teach in class using a laptop now.
Only six years ago, sophisticated calculators were as fancy as it got. The complexity of the problems we can give them has increased. A core of professors at the College of Engineering are preparing for the future by slowly integrating computer video and sound into their classroom lessons. One classic computer video shows the collapse of the Tacoma, Wash., Narrows Bridge. The lesson allows students to build a frame model, apply some new equations, and the computer will then show the solutions to those equations in an effort to discover what changes would have saved the bridge.