Engineering Computing Center

Welcome to the Engineering Computing Center!

The Engineering Computing Center is a cluster of lab spaces in the Heafey building that provides primary computing resources for instructional and research-related activities in the School of Engineering and STEM.

The Engineering Computing Center currently has 10 computer labs:

5 Microsoft Windows 10 labs
5 Centos Linux labs

In addition, Engineering Computing Center staff provide support and access to systems in 10 departmental labs. These systems support engineering courses with computing lab components and provide high-end systems for student use on course assignments and projects.

The Engineering Computing Center provides a wide variety of industry-standard technical software packages and hosts a variety of programming language compilers. All students in engineering classes are given accounts to log into any of the engineering labs.

ECC FAQs

Remote Access to the Engineering Computing Center

Do you need help connecting to the Engineering Computing Center remotely? Here is the information on how to connect.

Where is the Engineering Computing Center located?

The Engineering Computing Center is located on the first floor of Heafey-Bergin, Bldg. 202

When is the Engineering Computing Center open?

The Engineering Computing Center is open from 8:00 A.M. - 12:00 A.M. daily (7 days) and 10:00 A.M. - 6:00 P.M. during holiday and break periods. However, classes take precedence over individuals accessing the lab.

How do I get an account?

All students who register for an Engineering class have an account generated automatically for them.

Use your SCU Username and Password to log in to the ECC computers.

Who is the contact person for help or more information?

The Lab Monitors provide support for students using the ECC labs:

In person: ECC Front Desk in the first floor of Heafey
By email: ECCLabMonitors@scu.edu
By telephone: (408) 554-4909

For other questions or issues, please contact the ECC staff:

By email: support@engr.scu.edu
Lantz Johnson (Engineering Computing Center Manager) – (408) 554-6806
Jason Chong (Windows System Administrator) – (408) 551-1893

Computer spec recommendations for Engineering students

In terms of computing specs for the School of Engineering, we recommend the platform you're comfortable with. The only caveat is Chromebooks/iPads are not something we have tested and probably not recommended. We recommend you buy from a reputable computing seller like Dell/Apple which offers support and warranty. As a general framework, the following are some suggestions:

1. Don't buy the top-tier CPU processor as that is overpriced and not worth the performance gain to cost. One level lower is usually worth the investment. Avoid the lowest tier as that is usually at the tail end of the life cycle and performance.

2. 16 GB memory is recommended as that covers a large spectrum of application usages. It also gives your computer a bit more longevity.

3. Hard drive size is dependent on your storage needs. If you plan to store a lot of photos/videos/multimedia files then plan accordingly. From the SOE software point of view, we offer remote access to our Engineering software. Our remote access platform software requirement is less than 350MB. The school also offers google drive cloud storage with very generous storage size. So in terms of choosing hard drive size, plan for your personal storage needs. If the cost increase is palatable, we would recommend upgrading to an SSD/NVME type hard drive. That has a huge performance gain over the traditional and cheaper mechanical hard drives. SSD/NVME is becoming more default but they are usually at the top and mid-tier computer build selections, which means the cost does increase.

4. Our remote access software supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. So any computer running these 3 platforms should be compatible.

Other FAQs

Q. How do I enroll in the Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching to get free software?
All Engineering Faculty, staff or enrolled students can have access to a variety of free Microsoft Operating systems and programs. Please follow the link and it will include instructions on how to create your account. Please note, all support for this program now goes through Microsoft. If you have an account or access issues, you will have to contact them via their support page.

Q. How can I request for the software to be installed?
We only accept resource requests from Faculty members. Faculty members, please use the following link to submit your Software Request Form. We will evaluate your request to make sure it is feasible within the timeline and resources available. Before submitting, please take a look at the available resources listed here in this link: resources.

Q. Do we have remote connectivity to the engineering computing center?
Yes, see the How to Connect page for information on remote access.

Q. Can I access my Windows NT home directory from Unix?
Yes. It is /users/nt/homes/username. Note that if you use NT filenames with spaces in them, you will have to surround the filename with quotation marks to do anything with it on the Unix side.

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