Office 365 rollouts are complete, meaning every Penn State student across all campuses has access to the full array of apps in the Office suite.

The transition to Office 365 was initiated to consolidate Penn State’s pre-existing email systems for faculty, students, and staff. The team behind the transition explored several different email systems and found that Office 365 can provide students with the opportunity to build professional skills used in the workplace by making them familiar with the suite of apps.

Additionally, Office 365 provides top of the line security abilities to filter malware and spam before it gets to students’ inboxes.

Several of the apps in the Office 365 package promote collaborative learning all in one place, meaning students can move away from third-party apps like GroupMe and no longer have to give out their personal information when working on group projects.

Web modules have been developed to walk students through specific tasks to help students get acquainted with the new programs. Some of these modules help you import your class schedule from LionPATH and create new Microsoft teams. You can find training for Office 365’s various apps online.

As part of the Office package, students now have access to Skype for business, making remote interviews easier and more accessible. Graduating seniors are encouraged to download all files stored in the Office cloud upon graduating because they will lose access after six months post-grad. 

The Office 365 team will host an information session and demo from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, September 28 in the HUB.