<p>Does the university offer discounts for MS office/word etc? My daughter really wants a Mac but there is an additional cost to get the MS stuff on there. I heard that colleges often offer deep discounts (at least our state university here does to students). Does Columbia have this type of discount? Where would we go to find out on that? She already has her uni id..</p>
<p>the discount isn’t from columbia or your state uni, but rather it is standard for students to get the ‘student version’ of ms office and a handful of products, which i think it is like 120 bucks or something like that for office.</p>
<p>you can buy it online just by putting in that she is affiliated with columbia, or in person at any number of stores (best buy for instance, or the apple store) by showing your school ID or your admissions decision.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t say that it is an additional cost, that kind of means you aren’t getting what’s actually going on. when you buy a pc that comes with windows, you’re paying for ms office, even if you don’t know it. you’re also paying often for a more cheaply, more mass-produced product (though there are some really solid pc makers out there), which accounts for what appears to be a single lower price.</p>
<p>if you’re really on a shoestring, she can download for free ‘open office’ which is an opensourced version of office, that also uses the .doc extension for files, so folks that have office can open your files. if i didn’t get a free upgrade from office, i probably would’ve switched over to openoffice.org</p>
<p>Thanks so much. We’ll check it out!</p>
<p>Just to clarify, you don’t need MS Office in order to use Office documents (like .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.); Open Office and iWork will open and save those kinds of files, too. Open Office is free and works on PC, Mac, and even Linux. If you’re getting a Mac, though, I’d recommend iWork, which is Apple’s office suite. It’s not free, but it’s only $40 if you buy it when you buy your Mac. It’s definitely nicer than Open Office, and fits better with the Mac. But if you don’t want to buy it, you can always download Open Office: [OpenOffice.org</a> - The Free and Open Productivity Suite](<a href=“http://www.openoffice.org/]OpenOffice.org”>http://www.openoffice.org/)</p>
<p>Does it matter to an engineering student if they are on a regular PC or on a Mac? I read on another forum here that engineering students maybe better off on a PC. It didn’t really say why, so, not sure that it would matter once you had internet and a way to access office like documents (.doc, xls etc).</p>
<p>columbia has tons of computer labs, and engineering labs that have all the necessary software you would want/desire, so don’t worry.</p>
<p>I imagine there is certain software that engineers use that will only work on Windows, not the Mac’s operating system (Mac OSX). As adgeek points out, though, there are plenty of computer labs that have PCs so your daughter could get a Mac and then just go to the computer labs when she had to work with a program that wouldn’t work on a Mac.</p>
<p>It’s also possible to install Windows on a Mac, so that you can choose which you want to use whenever you turn the computer on. That way, you can just restart your computer and switch to Windows whenever you have to use an engineering program that only runs on Windows. There’s a little more information about Macs working with Windows here: [Apple</a> - Mac OS X - Windows Compatibility - How Mac works with PCs](<a href=“macOS Ventura - Apple”>macOS Ventura - Apple)</p>
<p>Actually, state universities DO offer huge discounts that are not the same as student pricing offered at stores and through Columbia. I know most of the state universities in Texas offer MS Office for $15, whereas Microsoft’s student pricing is something like $130. </p>
<p>I would recommend getting a friend from a state univ to buy it for you - its what I did for my Mac :-)</p>
<p>fitchm - Thanks for the great advice. That would save us at least $100 on MS office. We’ll look into it.</p>
<p>@fitchm
You mean you had your friend from State U buy you a Mac? How much was the discount? Columbia’s Apple store has $100 off the price of a Macbook Pro plus $50 off Applecare. Would State U’s discount be greater than that?</p>
<p>^I think fitchm means that the State U friend got MS Office for him (for his Mac).</p>
<p>Yep, I was just talking about software. I used to work at Apple, and I think their $100 student discount is probably the best deal you’ll get on hardware.</p>
<p>Well, here’s the best deal I could find for Office for Mac: [MacMall</a> | Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition - Complete package - 3 Macs in one household GZA-00006](<a href=“TigerDirect Sunset”>TigerDirect Sunset)
It’s $110 for 3 computers, so that’s just $37 for each computer. Get two friends and split it!</p>
<p>The argument about engineering programs not working on OSX is misleading. A bunch of programs do have OSX versions (matlab, mathematica, there’s an autodesk equivalent, etc).</p>
<p>Really the bigger issue is how much are you willing to pay for a student license on a program you wont use everyday (like Office) as opposed to just walking over to a computer lab. Even the MechE’s i know could never justify buying a license for Autodesk or SolidWorks. Matlab is the one exception I can think of (which does have an OS X version…both os’s are 100$ for students).</p>