Clinton Said:

What essential software should every college-student's laptop have on it?

We Answered:

Hi Chris,
I would recommend http://www.ccleaner.com which is a great cleaning utility that is free. I also would recommend some games, and the best can be found at http://arcade.real.com I would also ditch the MS Office for http://www.openoffice.org which is fully compatible with MS Office, only free for life, so you can keep up to date without the added expense. Speaking of expenses, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have something like QuickBooks, etc. to keep track of your available funds so that you can create a budget to live on. Possibly even adding some tax software so you have a means of income while at school.
Hope this helps