Having my own reasonably powerful PC was integral to me, it allowed me to work on industry standard software like Solidworks and Adobe CS at my own leisure. Working with these programs to a point where your work has a professional standard takes ages and it is so much easier when you can dip into it at any point.
If you are clever but have trouble spelling you may be able to swing a laptop or desktop for free through the dyslexia support scheme. You should also be able to get hold of student editions of most software for free too, just ask John or Marylyn - I’m sure they would be happy to chase something up.
I chose a MAC; awesome for stuff like Adobe CS and looks beautiful but in hindsight a powerful PC would have been cheaper (if you’re paying) and work’s much better with CAD packages.