There's not a chance this is realistic. Buying low and selling high in the world of (especially) PC-based machines is next to impossible, unless you spend considerable amounts of time for replacement part and quickly sell the whole before its value falls too low. And time, at 15, or 16, or 17, you don't have. School should take all your time.
Everybody is struggling in my city. Be they 20's, teens, or 30's. No wonder poverty level is so high here.
If you are aiming for university, don't count on any number of hours on a minimum-wage job to pay it. If your parents didn't get the bright idea of putting money aside from your birth each month, or if you come, like many others, from a middle-class family, forget about your dream. It's that, or you'll end up ruined until well past reproductive age. Education costs unreasonable amounts of money to individuals, yet return on investment is dwindling fast, unless you're training for a guaranteed job such as MD, vet, or dentist.
There is a reason why Quebec's student fought to keep education affordable for all, even if many still have trouble paying for it. They will just have less of it compared to other countries where fees are disconnected from daily reality.
On the other hand, I do agree with above poster that you definitely don't need such a machine to train on video edition, even HD. A maxed-out i5 or C2D MBP (preferably 15" for the dedicated GPU) would do a fine job, albeit slower than a full-fledged iMac.
I stopped reading here. You're "Old Economy snarfquest". Your experience is irrelevant in 2013.
...actually Apple Store turn down even moderately experienced salespeople and Apple enthusiasts and savvys. Do you really expect them to hire a 17 guy who never had a Mac?
Last time I looked, Apple-based solutions were THE industry standard.
I think the OP stated he wanted to add additional practice time at home while going to college during the day. Nothing wrong with that, although if he get bad habits, they will be difficult to undo later on.
Huh, no. A $500 Windows 7 machine will lead you to the desktop in 45 seconds, and peacefully navigate from one app to another, manatee-style. Oh, and this setup will require you wear earplugs at all times. Stay away from any homebuilt PC that is not at least $800 (says the guy who had four of them and will prefer to walk than going back to these inefficient piles of silicon).
Well, it is not strictly necessary to have a powerhouse at home, but much like learning a foreign language, if you're never using it outside of class, you'll never learn it properly. Having a fast enough (though not lightning fast) machine is like having a broadband Internet connection vs. having a dial-up modem: you are simply much more efficient in your looking for information and learning (on smaller renders of course) of the workflow. Similarly, a better-organized, more beautiful UI does help one work more efficiently. The brain doesn't like extraneous information intruding in an already-complicated workflow.
That is actually very wise an advice.
