I have a few different email addresses, just like everyone else, I expect, and one of these is my student email I was given by my university. I graduated at the end of last year and nothing was said about the email being discontinued, so I happily kept using it … until this morning.

I went to sign in and was refused. Confused, I clicked the ‘lost password’ button only to be told that my credentials were invalid. Invalid? Oh oh…

I phoned the help desk and was told that your email account only remains active for six months after you graduate. That makes sense, I guess, but what annoyed me was that there was no warning at all that they were about to wipe my account. I was never told about this six months’ rule and I swear some of my friends still have theirs active and they’ve been non-students for longer than me! On a daily basis, I get three or four spammy emails from the university, telling me about guest lecturers and programs and university updates that I don’t remember subscribing to - yet they couldn’t send me one quick email saying “get your emails off because we’re going to delete your account”.

WTF. Not happy.

The (very helpful) guy at the help desk said it might be possible to reopen my account for a week so I could get all of my emails off, but he said there’s a chance they won’t do it. That means I have lost the last five years’ worth of emails. I never thought to have a back-up because I was at least expecting some sort of warning if they were going to delete it, so I could get my butt into gear and sort through what I wanted to keep.

Sigh. I guess I’m just waiting on an email to see if they’ll reopen the account.

So yeah, to my university: A nice little heads up would have been nice. Thanks.