Microsoft Office is an extremely useful collection of software that can be used for a lot of things. One of the main things, is the use of it for students in university. It can be used to type up notes at home or in a lecture or create spreadsheets. But with it does come a heavy price tag, so some will wonder if universities give students Microsoft Office.
Most universities give students access to Microsoft Office, through their ‘university email.’ This is because Microsoft Office is seen as cheaper and better when compared to its equivalent services, so universities will pay for it, and give them to their students.
If you want to learn more about universities, if they give Office, and how much it would normally cost, you can read on to find out.
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Do universities give you Microsoft Office 365?
Most universities will give students Microsoft Office. A lot of these institutions see it as a powerful service, and one that will allow students to progress within their time, with the use of its extremely helpful software. If you are not sure if your university has given you Microsoft Office, or if you want to download it right now, click on this link to Microsoft’s website. You will need to enter your university email address. If you are eligible, it will send you to the download page.
If you want to read more about which subjects need laptops and why they are useful, see this Think Student article.
Why is Microsoft Office 365 important at university?
At University, you will find the need for efficiency, and from traditional pen and paper methods, you will find yourself missing a lot of help. This help can come from the applications under the Office suite, which provides a lot of very helpful features to aid you in your studies.
What Microsoft Office 365 features are the best?
Microsoft Office 365 is an incredibly adaptive software with lots of great features to enjoy. You can find some of these listed below:
- One of the most useful features of office, for both students and teachers, is the use of its cloud storage – Microsoft OneDrive allows for storage of files over the cloud (the internet) and allows for access and sharing anywhere, making it easier for students and teachers to communicate.
- Another point of communication is Microsoft Teams – it is a very common software that allows students and teachers to talk to each other, over chat or video call. This also allows lectures to take place over video calls.
- Along with this is Outlook – This is already a very common email platform, but with Office, it comes with some added bonuses, and allows for better professional communication, with linked contacts.
- Apart from these, there are a number of software that are incredibly useful and powerful –Microsoft Word is a word processor. It allows for the typing up of notes using a keyboard, or your voice with a huge number of powerful features. PowerPoint is a presentation software that allows for a very professional presentation. Finally, Excel provides a very intuitive and powerful spreadsheet maker, with lots of built-in features.
While these 3 are the main apps that most know about, there are a huge number of other apps like OneNote which acts like a digital notebook. All of these applications under Office are especially useful and will greatly help you in your studies. If you would like to find out more about the features of Office, you can click on this link to Microsoft’s website.
How much does Microsoft Office 365 cost?
If your university does not provide it, you will find that you need to buy it yourself. The best options for you would be Microsoft 365 Personal. It costs £59.99 a year, or £5.99 a month, for 1 person. It gives all of the features, 1tb of cloud storage, and every single app under the Microsoft 365 suite. You can find Microsoft 365 at this link.
Your other option for yourself would be Office Home & Student 2021. It costs a one-time payment of £119.99. You get the classic versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but nothing else. The downsides, apart from the heavy price, is the slightly older versions of the 3 apps, no updates, and you miss out on the other useful apps. You can find Office Home and Student, at this link.
In this article, we have discussed whether your university gives you Microsoft Office, and how to check whether it does. If not, you may have to buy the suite which can come out to be quite costly. If you find yourself struggling for software like these, this UCAS page gives advice saving money on expensive software.
Technology is an important aspect of education and you can’t really go without it. To read more on this topic, you can check out this Think Student article.