My experience (Mechanical Engineering) was that laptop banning was only an indicator as to whether the professor was "old-school." IMO, some hardcore practice-

My experience (Mechanical Engineering) was that laptop banning was only an indicator as to whether the professor was "old-school." IMO, some hardcore practice-until-you-bleed cornerstone topics benefited immensely from an "old-school" professor (Thermodynamics, Mechanical Design, Heat Transfer, etc) whereas softer, more conceptual classes (Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics, Mechanics of Materials, etc) benefited from "new-school" professors that were savvy to the benefits of interactive software and additional visualizations and knowledge multipliers afforded by a computer.