Nikki McCrady went without her USI email for two weeks.

“I missed some assignments for my BIO 251 class,” said the junior elementary education and special education double major.

She wasn’t allowed to make up her assignments because the professor lets the students pick which assignments they want to be graded.

Although, McCrady didn’t miss any points, she missed assignments that she felt more comfortable doing.

“It was an assignment I would have liked to do, but it was too late,” she said. “I personally think we have had more issues than anything since they switched to the Outlook.”

Information Technology Executive Director Richard Toeniskoetter said the old system was from the 90s.

“It’s been here a long time,” he said.

Both old and new systems are Microsoft, but it’s now a consolidated platform with Microsoft Exchange.

IT began switching out passwords from the old system in January, and the department thought they had three or four more months before everyone had to change the passwords into the new system.

But Microsoft update had other plans.

“It forced all 10,000 students to change their passwords right then,” he said. “The Help Desk was completely swamped.”

Toeniskoetter said IT is getting people through it.

IT Help Desk Assistant Shannon Hoehen said the system is syncing the passwords now, and students can get on.

“Alumni are still having difficulties because they haven’t logged in for a long time,” she said.

If students are still having problems to log onto their email, they should log on to myUSI, and at the top should be a “password reset” tab, which they fill out the information asked.