We don't know if the school has mandated a platform and application suite or not. But assuming they have, there could be issues for a user that decides to go another direction, such as use a competing application and equivalent application suites (especially if there's a class that teaches the interface as part of it's instruction, as it won't match up = additional learning curve at best, possibly an inability to perform the assignment if a feature isn't there or doesn't produce identical output; not sure if they use comparative algorithms for grading assignments).
Again, it entirely depends. If a professor requires FCP7, it would be the OP's own fault for not using the assigned program. It would be the same deal with the prof required Premiere and the OP used FCP7 instead.
FCPX != FCP7 and you can't substitute one for the other, even if they were feature equivalent. Which is certainly something OP should be aware of. But I don't see an academic situation in which this would be an issue, especially in since OP wouldn't be able to hand in a FCP7 compatible project if he was using FCPX, and thus probably wouldn't even be able to hand in his work.
Basic lesson: If you're in a video editing class, and the professor requires a specific package, use the package required. If the professor isn't teaching to a specific software set, FCPX will be fine. I've known film majors and film students who've even used iMovie.
The actual algorithms of similar features might be a bit different (if they're not pulled from the same public domain source;
I don't see why they would be different. That's a processor issue, not an OS issue, and we're all on the same processors now. Compilers can be slightly different, but with vector processing and GPU acceleration, most algorithms are being run on hardware that is not compiler dependent.
see above as it could pertain to grading = a means of seeing if they know how to use the UI properly or not).
I haven't seen any significant UI differences between Mac and Windows in either CS suite or Avid. Sure, the OK button is a different color. Not a big deal.
Also, generally cross platforms suites guarantee the same output, as editors pass files back and forth across platforms. If they don't output the same, it's a bug.
It would be
very hard to grade on output though, as the color would shift between displays, especially on Windows.
Another potential issue IMO, is the UI almost certainly won't be identical between platforms, even between application suites that are developed on more than one platform. Particularly if the class is concentrating on teaching the UI of applications the school uses (wouldn't expect them to teach multiple applications simultaneously for the same purpose; platform agnostic approach if you will, as it would take additional credit hours to teach).
I haven't seen any significant UI differences in video editing suites, and I've worked on both platforms.
The Mac is a big platform for video editing. No one is gimping their Mac clients. This is a non issue.
Heck, a lot of video editing classes are taught on Macs. You're assuming that in an academic setting OP would be on Windows, which is a big assumption.
