Would a macbook pro do what I need...

Heya guys I need some advice. First of all English isn't my main language so I apologize in advance if some things don't make sense.
I'm studying networking, how to be a network administrator. I'm about to finish my first semester and at first I thought I would be fine using the school's computers (i7 third gen, I thing around 3.5ghz, 16gb of ram). Problem is, a lot of people are using these computers and a lot of people are playing around with them, opening them up, messing with stuff and changing bios configuration. I've actually had a pc crash on my while I was doing a test and lost everything. After that I figure I needed my own computer so I wouldn't be dependent on their machines.
Talking with a teacher he told me that one final project he usually gives those about to finish the program is to run around 10 virtual machines (using vmware), a combination of windows server 2008, windows 7 and linux machines and have each run independent services or act as clients, all at the same time.
I figure I need a pretty powerful laptop to be able to do all that (>16gb ram, fast processor). I'd like to be able to last the duration of my program without having to upgrade.
At first, since everything we are doing is on windows, I was looking for a windows laptop but every model that caught my eyes are not that stable, a lot of them, or all of them actually, have pretty major problems. The one I was leaning towards the most has a problem where the screen turns black permanently with no solution to that problem being found yet (one person on the forum has had this problem since october now). I've been needing a reason to switch for mac for a while now so I figured now might be a good time.
I just need to make sure I'll be able to run those 10 virtual machines without any hiccups. The laptop I was looking at had 32gb ram and the rMBP only has 16, will that be enough? Some of the labs we do in class we need to be on the same local network so I would need the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter. I'd be using mainly windows at school but at home it would be mac all the way. I think I'd rather do everything windows related using vmware rather than do a boot camp install, I've read online people having problems with drivers.
I realise a laptop will never be as good as a desktop, but having a laptop will also mean I can do school work at home, which is a big plus as well. I'd get a fully decked out 15inch macbook pro, with the 2.8ghz processor and 1tb disk.
Oh and the fact that this laptop doesn't weigh 10 pounds is a big plus since I spend 3 hours in the subway and bus each day.
HELP!
Thanks in advance

Just visited my son and his old boss was running VM Fusion. I asked him about it:
"Glad to help. Also note that VMware Fusion (another similar product is VirtualBox) are not, strictly speaking, windows (or whatever) emulators. I guess they would more appropriately be considered machine emulators. The just create the environment into which you install a full operating system (which you have to install separately). While my home machine is OS-X with a "VM" running windows XP, my work computer is windows 7 with a VM (VirtualBox) running Ubuntu.
Both seem to work well."
So that seems to work well and it was an older MacBook Pro an early 2012 15".
There are older MBPs still being sold by Apple
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
I like these because you can easily upgrade them w/ SSD and 8 GB RAM. (OWC to 16 GB)
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_160 0MHz_SDRAM
You'll find the SSD is the most important component of the MBP as long as you're at 8 GB RAM. Very speedy.

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