When I was a university student, I had a MacBook Air with 8 GB RAM. I used it for my 1st semester, and I ran a few VMs. Still, I felt I needed something more powerful and mobile because I needed a powerful computer in my classroom to enjoy my studies.
I bought a second-hand Dell Precision M4600 with 32GB RAM to run many VMs using VMware Workstation Pro. It was excellent, and I could do all my university assignments with that laptop. I ran many VMs and did all kinds of tests. But still, something was missing, and I was looking at different ways to speed up my IT learning and get a practical experience.