Outlook does not work with Thunderbird or any other app besides the official Outlook one, which doesn’t exist for Linux. Even if it did I wouldn’t want to install it. So I am forced to use web mail.
That is not generally true across the board, but it may be true for your university because they have disallowed it.
Outlook, or rather Exchange Server and Office 365, does work with standard email clients like Thunderbird via the IMAP protocol, but it can be disallowed by the admins.
Nextcloud contacts gives you CardDav, so it works with Android, iOS, and any number of Linux/Windows/Mac clients. Thunderbird certainly, and many other desktop mail clients. (Don't know about a Linux or Windows app limited to just contact management over CardDav, but it's probably out there.)
This book is amazing. Every other resource I find refers back to Michael Bazzell as the expert.
If you use Office 365 web version of Word and Excel, you can use that in a Linux browser; no Windows needed.
Look up Unicode Fraktur characters
Why would there be any cases where Dior needs a customer's passport/government ID number/Social Security Number?