College Will Teach You A Thing Or Two About Email

Email in college is no joke. That’s not to say that it was a joke while you were in high school, but college life also prepares you how to professionally manage an inbox. During high school, you truthfully might not have used email much, as that inbox probably mostly filled up with promotions, giveaways, and the occasional email actually worth opening. In college, that’s not the case.

That inbox of yours can be compared to being a new pet owner, such as a dog owner. What was before a cute animal that you’d occasionally pet and visit now requires full-time energy to maintain, respond to, and necessitates that you stay up late at times to tend to it. Yes, that’s your new college email, and, no, it won’t be cute. While you won’t be flooded with emails like some working professionals, you’ll get you’ll fair share, and more than your fair share of ones worth opening.

All this emailing will be good practice for the real world. While hopefully you already know how to use email, managing your inbox is great practice for life after college. First off, you’ll need to responsibly check your email, which means more than giving it a quick glance once a day like you might do with your personal inbox. From updates from teachers, to messages from group project participants, to, yes, an email from your parents, you can’t use the excuse that you missed an email because you failed to check. That’s so ‘90s.

After all, if you can’t be trusted to be reasonable about checking your email, it’ll be a bad sign if you can’t handle that small responsibility. Fortunately, the task isn’t difficult. Responding, however, can be a bit more of a challenge. You’ve heard that you shouldn’t treat formal emails like text messages, and it’ll be good practice on how to get your message across politely and concisely, which is an underrated skill that college email can teach.

Email can also teach you a thing or two about organization. For the first time in your life, you might be in a situation where you have to find an old email. Have to—as in, your grade depends upon it! Hopefully you’ll quickly find that it’s to your advantage to keep email organized, as a messy inbox will make sifting through old emails a miserable task. Just as a clean dorm room will result in more convenience and less wasted time during college life, the same holds true with your inbox.

And if nothing else, using email will teach you the need to learn to type properly if you’re a two-finger typist. That’s a skill that will be useful for life, and will be something worth learning while in college.