the axiom is nice, there a ton inexpensive monitors on the market, what type of music are you doing?

I'd like to start creating little soundtracks for mini movies. I don't have a certain genre in mind. So I'd like to start as broad as possible

Your biggest obstacle in your quest is going to be the room. If your dorm is anything like any of the dorm rooms I lived in/visited during my college/grad school days then you're going to have a heck of a time dealing with slap back reflections and bass proximity from the building construction itself. Does your school have a music/technology lab where you can do some real mixing?

Yeah. Virginia Tech has an lab that I can go to for some real stuff. but i was hoping to get a descent set up to do some stuff when I am bored of doing my Engineering work.

get some k240's just to rough mix at the dorm, the do real mixing in the lab, you will keep those phones forever and if you buy cheap monitors they will most certainly end up on ebay for a loss

My concern is the software though. I have been thinking Sonar X1. what do you guys think?

Sonar is very reputable. I think that whatever DAW you choose you end up liking for the workflow or because it's the only DAW you know. I started out on ProTools and Adobe Audition. I haven't used PT in seven years and would not feel comfortable at all if I had to use PT now. Currently I'm learning Reaper and Samplitude. Boy is it a pain in the tuckus to not just revert to the program I know very very well.

Long story short. Pick a DAW based either on what you will be studying in school or internship or how it meets your audio work flow requirements. If you have nothing now I will suggest beginning with Reaper as it is $50 for a non commercial license and whatever you learn with it will spill over into any other DAW you might learn in the future.

Yeah just get good headphones. Treat yourself, there's a lot good in I guess the $250 range, my preference is ATM50s I think they are, there's a bit more variance in the $450 range, then everything gets very personal til you spend more than $1,000. For movie work with massive dynamic range, you'll be happy on phones anyway.

Hello,

I also use Acid and SF. They work great to track and edit. I have used Acid since it was free with AOL. If you can't have great acoustics for monitoring headphones can work till you get to the lab. If you can train your ears to hear things you'll be close when final mixing. If you plan on making midi music and not just looping, I suggest Propellerheads Reason or Ableton Live. I really like reason and you can make super quality tracks aside from acid.
CPU and a soundcard that can accept mics and midi. 7200 RPM Hard Drive and you'll be able to get going. Good luck, shouldn't need anything else but midi instruments galore to further expand your capabilities.

Keep It Trill
LOS

Well I will be using my laptop for most of the recording. I have an i7-620M, 8 gigs of DDR3 and 320 gb HD running at 7200 RPM. I was thinking of getting an interface to be able to plug in my midi keyboard

That's cool, Do you have any analog midi instruments or are you using the midi keyboard to trigger notes in your DAW? If that's the case (triggering notes just in the computer) you could get a Midi to USB cord that would do just fine. I use my drum machine and keyboard this way and it's great. Midi isn't transferring any actual sound, just code so I hope this helps,

Keep It Trill
LOS

Yeah I planned on using it to trigger tracks within my DAW and or using virtual instruments

Great, the Midi to USB cable will work just fine for you. Here's one at this link just so you kind of know what you need,
Alesis USB Midi Cable AudioLink Series Midi to USB Cable

Hope this helps,
Keep It Trill
LOS

Know that USB MIDI can sometimes introduce a hair of latency but usually easy enough to overcome if one knows about it. Latency free MIDI is only available on a PCI/PCIe or comm port. These USB to MIDI adapters are quite usable though.