Checking e-mail in College

Having worked in higher education, I can tell you that there are four different types of students:

First, you have the student who obsessively checks their inbox.  They are afraid they will miss an email from their professor.  They want to be the first to schedule their advising appointment.  They are open to trying out every on-campus activity or group that sends this student an invitation to join.  They are the over-achievers.  They are the students who can be self-destructive with their perfectionism.  They delete all the emails they need as already read, and only keep emails that they need to follow-up with.  If you see this student log in, you may be shocked to read that it says 15 emails total in their inbox.

Second, you have the student who forgot to check their email for the first month and once they realized they’d forgotten, they freaked out.  They’re the students who struggled with staying organized.  They were logging into Blackboard daily, but totally forgot they needed to also log in to check their emails.  They may see the enormous amount of unread emails and become paralyzed.  They don’t know where to start, and they’ll avoid checking their email altogether moving forward.  They kind of have a case of the f*** its with their email.  They’d like to pretend it doesn’t exist and would rather avoid it altogether than go through one-by-one to clear out their inbox.  

Third, you have the student who keeps every single email.  They log in to see if there’s anything they need to read.  Instead of deleting emails they deem unnecessary for themselves, they just skip over them.  Leaving them as “unread” emails.  These are the students with 15,000 emails in their inbox.  These are students who aren’t easily overwhelmed.  They don’t see a problem with 15,000 emails in their inbox.  They’re able to filter through all the clutter than could potential overwhelm them.  They may be less motivated, and they do what they need to do to minimally get by.

And lastly, you have the student who doesn’t check their email at all.  They see it as a waste of time.  Maybe they never checked their email in high school.  Why would they check their email in college?  This is the student who misses everything.  They miss the notification from their professor that class is cancelled.  They miss the outreach from university staff who are targeting them because of their early alert academics.  They miss the email from their Academic Advisor about scheduling their advising appointment to get their advising code. They are the least engaged academically, yet possibly most engaged socially.  They’re in college for the wrong reasons.

Is this an accurate depiction of Generation Z college students and the four categories we can forcing them into?  Absolutely not.  This is a gross generalization of college students and their email checking habits. There may be some accuracy, and there may not be.  Regardless, if you are reading this you may have some knowledge that there is an issue around current college students and their routine in checking emails.

In addition to checking their email, students also need to know how to respond.  That’s an entirely separate article for another day.

Students need to check their emails.  Employers send emails.  You can access your email on your cell phone.  Most students have a phone.  There is no excuse for not responding to or at minimum reading emails.  It’s an appropriate way to receive individual communication, and it’s also a way to read about engagements on campus.  It’s the way to feel connected and a sense of belonging to the school a student is attending.    

For questions or comments contact Joanna.