College email is something that you take for granted. It’s always ready to give you your facebook updates, tell you when class is cancelled, warn you that your library fines are going to prevent you graduating, etc.
.EDU is an emblem of pride worn at such times like when the woman at the JCREW counter askes for your email addres…”Um… Yes. Of course I would like 6 emails a day about Jcrew Sales, arrivals, crew cuts and new Italian leathers! My email is Shiloh.pitt@USC.EDU (upsidedown smile). This simple interaction is a personal victory, casually proving my self esteem a reminder that a. I am enrolled in college and b. that to this stranger, I MIGHT be very brainy and intelligent.
So how long IS too long to continue to use my college email account?? Here is some background info: I went directly from undergrad to a graduate program at the same university. Diploma number one was a successful accomplishment but I had to finish my masters degree credits with a summer online class that was completed about two months after graduation. As you might imagine I was not the Universities most responsible student and paid little attention to deadlines and degree progress. So when it was time to graduate the records office lacked a clear understanding of my the degree path my “studies” had taken me. From being a transfer my sophmore year to several major changes, I probablly could have convinced them I had earned a PhD (ok not really at all. This statement is so far from true. I am lucky they ever issued a diploma at all – let alone two of them). Here is my point. All my friends at USC got a strongly worded email from the Univeristy that their .EDU accounts will be terminated unless they swiftly activated their “@.alumni.usc.edu” account. This was a shocking moment for all soon-to-be graduates. Wow. I am graduating. YIKES.
Now, I never got this email and I still have yet to see anything remotly close. I continue to get updates about Campus Crime and Class enrollment dates. I get emails about student surveys that “Need My Help!” so they can write their masters thesis. Even invites to speakers and other campus crusades sending the word out to the masses. While I happily ignore this steady stream of junk mail I have to wonder? What glitch caused my email address to be slighted from the Account Termination doomsday email?
I know what you are thinking and I was thinking it too. Naturally instead of addressing the “Did i ever really graduate” issues, I simply stewed in my own anxiety convinced I had never actually met the requirements to be an @alumni.edu!!
The pride I used to feel with my .EDU email address changes quickly to shame and embarassment when you are 25 years old. As I spell shiloh.pitt, my legit alumni friend gasps and says “You still have email!?”.
Most people don’t suffer this plight because when they graduate a diploma quickly arrives in the mail. I will save the whole story for another post, but lets just say Angelina and Brad must be so busy with adopting children that they “missplaced” the diploma envelope soon after it arrived via US MAIL. Luckily – a year later - USC has REISSUED my diploma, so I know for sure I am a graduate living a sweet life as an @usc.edu. Like a plane crash survivor or a gun shot vicitim, I feel like I have a second chance at life. This email account might just be my second chance at college. Maybe one day I open that RE: Blogging Seminar Rescheduled to Thursday nights, email and go right on ahead and enroll. Maybe this time around I will get something more out of college than an email account.
