bring it to school (college?) as in keep it in your dorm?
I would recommend Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop since your learning but you should try to setup, config, and maintain most things via CLI. You will learn alot more and you'll be able to maintain the computer remotely through SSH.
and SSH (Secure SHell) makes it so you can execute *any* CLI command with the right privileges so you probably wont need VNC. I personally use OpenSSH and found it "retardedly easy" ;) to setup and config, being quite new to linux myself. And use sFTP for files as gEEEk stated.
Make sure WoL is supported by your NIC and look into password protecting it if possible as some manufactures offer this feature but not many.