After the move occurred during winter break, many students are still left wondering why Ferris switched from Google to Microsoft Office 365 in the first place.
“I have never worked with Office 365, so I was really annoyed,” Ferris pre-optometry freshman Callie Jacobson said. “I don’t think they should’ve done it at all. Honestly, I think it’s unnecessary.”
All student and alumni accounts are now created within Office 365. The emails have been active as of Tuesday, Dec. 18.
“As an optometry major, we take a lot of science courses. The test banks that are through Gmail are really helpful and we’re not going to have those anymore, so it’s really frustrating,” Jacobson said.
Access to all student and alumni Google accounts will remain active until May 10, but students will not be able to send or receive emails from their previous Google address. On May 10, all student and alumni Google accounts will be deleted and no longer accessible. Due to this, students have to transfer over all files and emails associated to their google accounts.
“When I first got the email, I transferred my resumé immediately, but that was it,” Ferris radiography junior Mackenzie Williams said. “I have to transfer other documents over break, which sucks for me.”
According to Williams, her high school had used Google accounts and she was never taught how to use Office 365.
“I don’t know how to use it at all,” Williams said. “We’re going to lose stuff, important documents on your Gmail you have to transfer over to a different document, so it’s going to be hard.”
Ferris mechanical engineering sophomore La-Kie Donald said that although he hadn’t learned much about how to use Microsoft in the past, he didn’t expect the change to be that big of a problem in the end.
“It’s going to be different,” Donald said. “I’m not mad, it’s just that it might be a little inconvenient to switch everything.”
IT Services will not be transferring any student Google content into Office 365. The suggested method of transferring Google content is to use Google’s Transfer Tool for educational accounts to a personally-owned Google account. This tool will automatically transfer all email and Google Drive documents to a desired personal account, according to an email sent out to students from IT Services.
For information about the transfer tool, visit https://usingtechnologybetter.com/transferring-data-between-google-accounts-part-1/. For more information about the transfer from Gmail in general, visit Ferris’ FAQ page on the subject at https://www.ferris.edu/it/howto/gmailto365faq.htm.