I'm going to college in a little over five months and this is when I plan on broadening my horizons with film because there will be a pool of talented individuals that I can work with there. I need help on affordable (no more than $2000) equipment. Like what would be a good affordable HD camera that I should get and what would be a good affordable laptop that can handle video editing and isn't a Mac?

get a t3i and a laptop with at least 8 gigs of ram, lenovo and asus are reliable brands from my experience

How is your progress on filmmaking going?
It's been a while since we've heard from you.

I think I've bettered my filmmaking skills, but they're still not up to par as I would like since I don't have proper equipment.