A:Answer Yes, I use it all day everyday at my job, I am an Automation and Integration Engineer and graduated about 4 years ago with my BSEE and this will run anything he needs. If he is going into Mechanical Engineering I would recommend the dedicated graphics card one as he might be doing more 3D modeling which I don't do at all. I run full Microstation(similar to Full AutoCAD), Bluebeam, Mathcad, MATLAB, Powerworld, Accelerator Quickset, and other programs all on the base model. This is the ultimate machine for an Engineering major, as it can run anything he will need it too and OneNote is an amazing tool classes (especially math class where typing just doesn't work)