If the university offers to give you licenses for this software then fair enough - this is one way to rule out compatibility issues for the IT department. Surp

If the university offers to give you licenses for this software then fair enough - this is one way to rule out compatibility issues for the IT department. Surprised that they check if the software is legal however, what happens in the case that you've put cracked software on? Also do they not allow the laptop on campus if it hasn't been checked, or do they just not provide support if it hasn't been tested by them? This would go with my first point. I assume they're not imposing something silly like "you must only use Windows on your laptop" (ruling out dual-booting or something).