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Students receive a base Purdue Career Account that allows access to specific services at Purdue.
To learn more, visit ITaP's Career Account services page.
BoilerKey, Purdue’s version of two-factor authentication, is required to access many applications.
To set up BoilerKey, visit https://www.purdue.edu/apps/account/BoilerKey and click on initial setup.
This video is helpful for getting started:
NOTE: If you use a mobile device or smartphone to access Purdue services such as email, PAL, or VPN, please read What steps should I take with my mobile device when resetting my password? before changing your password. This will help ensure that your mobile device doesn't cause you to become locked out while your password change is propagating through the system.
Users have two options for changing your Purdue career account password:
If you have forgotten your password and have not set up your challenge questions and need your password reset, visit ITaP Labs Help Desk on the main floor of the Hicks Undergraduate Library (HIKS) and swipe your Purdue ID card. This is your most secure method. You may also call the ITaP Customer Service Center at (765) 494-4000 to request a password reset. Be sure you have the following information: your 10 digit PUID number, your name as it appears on official Purdue mailings, your Purdue career account login. You will be asked additional questions for verification purposes.
A @purdue.edu email account is provided to all individuals who maintain an affiliation with Purdue University, and new students are expected to check their Purdue AND personal email accounts regularly for important updates.
Your @purdue.edu email address can be set up to be forwarded to another email address, but new students should be aware that many important messages are sent only to your @purdue.edu address and may not forward to your personal address. To change your forwarding settings follow the instructions in the video below.
How to set up your @purdue career account and email
Step-by-step instructions for setting up career account and email
All Purdue email accounts are protected by Micrsosoft Multi-Factor Authentication. Once your email account has been created, you will be required to set up MFA using either a phone number or the Microsoft Authenticator App (all in-coming students will have set up MFA as part of their email activation process).
To learn more about using MFA, visit itap.purdue.edu/mfa.
Your Purdue email is a source for news, notices, announcements, and more. This is the main channel of communication for your professors, peers, and other University administrative units to keep you updated with changes to campus and services. It is important that you read your email frequently.
There are two important things to keep in mind when checking your Purdue email.
■ Check your Cisco Spam Quarantine daily for important messages that might get caught in the filter. You will receive an email summary every day about which messages were caught by the filter, allowing you to release those you want to keep to your inbox. Learn more about the CISCO Spam Filter here.
■ Do not be fooled by phishing emails! Phishing emails are common because your email address is public information. Phishing emails will commonly ask you to “click here” to give up your Purdue career account credentials (username and password) which can be used to take over your email. This could lead to a loss of money or other important information. Read "Email scams and phishing – how to spot them in your Purdue email and what to do" to learn more.
Purdue has licensed Office 365 from Microsoft to make it available for free on an individual basis to students, faculty and staff, including for use on their personally owned machines.
To install Office 365 on your computer, visit the Purdue Office 365 portal. Sign in with your Purdue email address and password. Then click the Install button on the top right of the page.
You can install Office 365 on up to five devices.
Academic software requirements vary by major, but Purdue students have access to many free or low-cost software options.
To learn more about available software, visit ITaP's Software page.
Software Remote is a service provided by ITaP that allows students to access many of the applications available in ITaP labs. To get started, go to https://goremote.itap.purdue.edu.
Students living in University Residences use ResNet Internet services to connect their personal devices to the campus network, either wirelessly with PAL3.0 or by using an industry standard Ethernet connection.
Students living in University Residences are strongly encouraged to:
To learn more about ResNet, including how to get help connecting your devices, visit the ResNet page. .
Using the link below, students can set up their devices (laptops, phones, tablests) to connect to campus Wi-Fi. By using this set up method, those not in range of campus Wi-Fi will be ready to connect when arriving on campus
Purdue AirLink, known as PAL, is the wireless network utilized on the University’s West Lafayette campus. It connects wireless-ready laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices to the Purdue network and, through the Purdue network, to the Internet. This is the recommend wireless service for students, faculty and staff.
Purdue Airlink, known as PAL 3.0, can be found in all academic buildings on the Purdue campus.
Students, faculty and staff can also connect to PAL by choosing PAL 3.0 under available Wi-Fi networks on their device and logging in with their Purdue username and password.
To learn more, visit ITaP's WiFi services page.
Incoming students should check with their academic department or advisor to see if their program has specific computing requirements.
In general, any recently purchased laptop or desktop computer will work for Purdue's networking and software requirements. Some software packages required for a specific major may only be available (or work better) on a specific operating system (i.e Mac vs PC).
Hardware discounts are available for all Purdue students and staff, including discounts for Apple and Dell devices. To learn more, see our Technology Discounts for Students and Staff page.
Instructional labs provide students and instructors at Purdue's West Lafayette campus with facilities designed to promote teaching and learning through the use of desktop computer systems.
For printing in computer labs and other ITaP printing locations, see the information available here.
For faculty and staff who need to connect to a local printer, contact your local IT department.
Faculty, staff and students working away from campus can securely access campus resources using a virtual private network. To learn how, visit ITaP's VPN services page.
For additional information, visit ITaP's working remotely services page.
If you are having trouble connecting to a network or service, contact the ITaP customer service center by calling (765)494-4000.
If you would like to request a service, or have a question that is not time sensitive, please email the customer service center at itap@purdue.edu.
To contact your local academic IT department, see the list here.