[JCBigler]

You will need some kind of audio interface. You have to get the sound into the computer somehow.

Sometimes you can use your computer's onboard sound card. Almost all of us have USB, firewire, thunderbolt, or PCI audio interface of some kind. The good news is that you can buy some decent 2-channel audio interfaces with MIDI connections for under $200.

You should be going over all of these things in your audio or recording class for which you will be buying your academic version of Protools.