Last Updated on | Published: February 4, 2023 |
If your university or college allows alumni to keep the email accounts, I’d strongly suggest you keep it. Why?
Here are the 6 reasons why you should keep your university or college email account.
Lifetime and Credible Email Address
You will lose your current job email when you quit or change jobs, but where you graduated from will never change. Universities or colleges are likely to provide alumni a lifetime email. Providing a university or college email address on your resume is essentially proof of education and background check for yourself. Just think about it. When you receive an email inquiry about job opportunities from @xxx.edu or @gmail.com, which do you trust?
Alumni Network
Networking is advantageous for both of your personal growth and career outlook. An alumni email will definitely catch my eyes first if I’m an interviewer. Reaching out to other alumni on LinkedIn with the university email also helps others to quickly recognize you. It could also be an icebreaker to open up the conversation. For example, maybe both of you know some common friends or took the same class from the same professor.
Simply keep in touch. You may have already built connections with your peers and professors during your study. It’s not just a list of email contacts but trustworthy relationships. I use my university email to keep in touch with my advisors and some former colleagues. For example, around Christmas or Thanksgiving, I’d send a note just to say hi and we exchange updates in life.
Unlimited Storage!
Your university email may provide unlimited storage for alumni as well. Personal gmail only has a limit of 15GB for each account. A lot of schools use Google Workspace for Education (previously known as G Suite). The storage has been unlimited until the recent policy change from Google that it will reduce to 100TB shared across all users for each school. This policy took effect in July 2022 for all existing users according to Google. However, I have not received any email notification about the new storage policy. I’m not sure if each university has a different contract or agreement with Google.
Security! – Email Aliases
Do you know Google Workspace allows email aliases? How do alias emails protect your privacy?
Email aliases provide an additional layer of protection from hacking. For example, your real email address is feelgood@university.edu. You can create an alias, say feeldown@university.edu, to send and receive emails at the same email account. However, the only way to log in your email account is to use your real email address at feelgood! In other words, you can mask your real email address and use an alias for anything from bank accounts to online shopping.
The number of alias email addresses is controlled by the Google Workspace Admin of your organization. Always check the IT page of your school email.
Perks of EDU Email Address
There are always some discount plans for students, such as Amazon Prime, Spotify and AT&T. Taking advantage of these perks can help you save money.
News and Alumni Benefits
Newsletters from your school email account keep you posted even after graduation. When is the homecoming? What is the latest research breakthrough at your university? Who is the speaker of the commencement speech this year? Although it may not seem directly relevant, I sometimes do feel I’m part of it and enlightened.
Summary
Keeping your school email may offer more benefits than you think. It gives straightforward credibility of your identity so it’s easier to communicate professionally with alumni on LinkedIn or keep in touch casually with your school mates and professors. Most importantly, it’s usually lifetime! Or even better with unlimited storage! Alias email addresses will also add another protection layer of your email account! Not to mention the discount perks of an EDU email address. After putting all of your time, money and efforts into your education, it’s already part of your identity and you should be proud!
