Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Microsoft Outlook is not the answer for MSU email

March 22, 2015
<p>Kaitlyn Casulli</p>

Kaitlyn Casulli

Photo by Danyelle Morrow | The State News

However, after reading that we will be switching over to Microsoft Outlook, it seems that the university will forever live in the past and may never become unstuck in time.

I was excited at first when I saw the headline. I thought getting a new email server was going to be awesome compared to the current MSU webmail. With MSU webmail, I sometimes feel that hauling stone tablets across campus to communicate with my professors and peers would be a more effective way to communicate.

It would be faster and less painless, that’s for sure.

Then, I continued to read and I could feel the excitement draining out of my body, followed by a sinking feeling. The “upgrade” is merely switching over to Outlook?! How can this be?

I used Outlook when I took a course at a community college several years ago. The look is more appealing than that of MSU webmail, but I found the controls to be rather frustrating.

I had to click on the email a certain way to make sure it would be marked as “read,” even though I had already seen the email in the side panel.

My despair was further perpetuated by the realization that I may never see the day that MSU switches over to Gmail. When I started last semester, I was hopeful. The email situation was dismal, but I figured that having a few Google apps licensed to MSU meant we might be one step closer to making the jump into Gmail.

I know many students already use Gmail because they have linked these accounts to their MSU webmail accounts. It seems like the most efficient solution for everyone would be to cut out the middle man and go with Gmail.

Other universities (for example, North Carolina State University, where I went to undergrad) and even many public school systems are now switching over to Gmail because they realize the benefits of the versatility and accessibility of Google apps.

An added benefit I know of as an alumna of NC State is that I can keep my email forever, as long as I log in regularly.

This may seem like just a big first-world problem, but having a user-unfriendly email server is actually quite hindering to productivity.

For example, the ability to drag-and-drop files into an email in Gmail is a big plus for me as well as general ease of navigation. Plus, there are a whole lot of other slick features that I don’t even have time to go into!

Unfortunately, we will continue to wrangle resources from two drastically different programs and hope that we don’t miss putting something important on our Google calendars because it was automatically added to our calendars in Outlook.

Maybe one day when we are all long gone, MSU will decide to join the 21st century. Although, I feel as though cars will be flying and time travel will be possible by then.

If so, maybe we can go back and fix this mistake.

Until then, I urge you to contact me through carrier pigeon.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Microsoft Outlook is not the answer for MSU email” on social media.