Universities shall encourage Open Source Softwares

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2009/01/enough-is-enough-higher-education-wake.html

http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/01/proprietary-bar.html

Dual-boot with Windows/Linux would be a good choice.

If the homeworks are required to be done in Word, you can use OpenOffice and save it in Word format. There is Word viewer for you to check if the format looks fine in Word's view.

Universities shall encourage Open Source Softwares