At my university we also use Matlab a lot. However, I've found that Octave is a very suitable replacement for all packages except Simulink, which is widely used for Control. The alternative here would be Scilab/Xcos.
I also use python/sympy/matplotlib/scipy/jupyter a lot and it's absolutely great -- highly recommend to the OP.
I also use python/sympy/matplotlib/scipy/jupyter a lot and it's absolutely great -- highly recommend to the OP.