Due to the distributed nature of accounts at UCSB account management can be confusing. This page will hopefully provide some answers to your questions
What kind of accounts do I have?
The answer can vary based on what your affiliation is and what services you use, but in general, almost all UCSB community members have at least 4 types of accounts:
UCSBnetID - Based on UCSB campus wide Identity. Used to sign into SSO portals.
Google Connect - Email and Google apps like Google drive. Your default email is your UCSBnetID@ucsb.edu. Almost all other accounts at UCSB use google for email and give you additional email aliases. Defaults to campus SSO, but can be signed into using a variety of methods.
College Level Accounts - The College of Engineering, like the other 4 Colleges that make up UCSB has their own account system. They are not mutually exclusive and people can have accounts from multiple colleges. CoE accounts grant you access to CoE resources such as the CSIL/Honea labs, CoE software, and CoE email aliases such as UCSBnetID@engineering.ucsb.edu and UCSBnetID@dept.ucsb.edu
Service accounts - These are accounts that provide you access to a particular service such as the UCSB Library or Adobe Federated ID for those whose departments have purchased Adobe Licenses through the Campus office of Software Licensing.
What is a UCSB NetID (UCSBnetID)?
The UCSB netid is the username used to sign-in to campus wide services and applications available to the UCSB community.
Netid's are based on UCSB Identity records, which are automatically created for students, faculty, and staff. Campus affiliates and visitors may also have Identity records created to provide for access to UCSB netid based services.
for more information see: https://www.identity.ucsb.edu/
What is my College of Engineering Account (COE)?
The College of Engineering Account is how you sign onto engineering computers, get access to software and help.
It is different from your UCSBnetID, which is at the campus level.
See Who is eligible for an account on College of Engineering computers? and Computer Use Policy
Is my College of Engineering Account (COE) the same as Connect and are both the same as UCSBnetID?
NO, You will have multiple accounts during your time at UCSB. While many of them will use the same connect.ucsb.edu portal to access their emails, on the back end, they are still separate and can have separate usernames, passwords and expiration dates. When you create a CoE account, you are automatically granted a Connect account by default if you do not already have one, or have an engineering aliases added to your Connect account if you already have a Connect account.
UCSBnetID = campus level services, Connect = campus wide email, CoE = College of Engineering level services. A few departments such as ECE still have departmental accounts separate from CoE for departmental level services.