The freshman introductory course, AAE190, has four hands-on engineering design projects, plus tours of many laboratory facilities in the department. Yes, if you have the standard curriculum well in-hand. Opportunities come and go depending on research load, lab and equipment availability, etc. Purdue and the department have numerous public terminals, workstations, and PCs available on campus. Everyone's needs and resources are so different, making this a very difficult question to give a simple answer to.
Students go through here with high marks without every owning a computer.
Others own a computer. Engineering studies at Purdue or any other leading university are four years of work to prepare you for a forty-year career. That takes hard work, and hard work pays off. We are the right program for many ambitious students who dream of working for NASA, the commercial aircraft industry, research labs, satellite companies, rocket builders, and many other companies.