Quick,without looking, what’s your LACCD student email address?
Hint: It’s written in all caps, has a random portion of your last name followed by your first initial, and has a seemingly random string of numbers attached.
In 2013, LACCD decided to revamp the student email communication service. Every student within the district is assigned an email through Microsoft Outlook, the purpose being to provide a secure and singular network in which sensitive information such as financial aid, counseling and campus news could be easily shared.
But most students don’t know their LACCD email. And why should they? Canvas, and moodle before it, have almost completely replaced the need for email communication between instructors and students.
Instead of forcing it as an outdated system of correspondence, teachers should inform students of the other benefits that this email domain provides.
The black market for .edu emails is significant. According to Gizmodo, Harvard student emails can fetch up to $400 on Taobao, China’s largest online marketplace.
Sure, your LACCD student email address won’t fetch such a pretty penny, but there are a variety benefits that can be acquired by signing up with a .edu email address. By using the district-provided .edu email address, discounts, freebies and perks become available from certain businesses. An email that would otherwise remain unused, or used begrudgingly, would suddenly have value.
Furthermore, students have their personal email and their spam-designated email that they created and have been using for years. Spaceboi93@fakenews.com will probably be easier to remember than an LACCD email, because a personal email address was possibly created with sentimental value.
Remembering the LACCD email address isn’t necessary because students can access their email by clicking a link in the Student Information System or by logging in to Microsoft Office 365 using their student ID.
And who even checks their LACCD student email?
At the beginning of every semester instructors will ask, “Who received my email?” And a handful of overachieving students with the class textbook already on their desks will raise their hands, the few, the proud. The instructor will then stand on their soapbox and instruct the class to forward their student email to their personal email. (“It only takes five minutes!”)
And though most won’t, they probably should.
Perhaps the most useful perk is the discounted Amazon Prime services. By subscribing and verifying the account with a .edu email, a student will get the first six months free and will pay half the subscription price ($55/year) thereafter through Amazon Student. Students have access to free two-day shipping and access to Amazon’s music and TV and movie streaming service as well as the cloud storage.
Spotify and Apple Music are $10 for a premium monthly subscription, but with an LACCD email address, the fee goes down to about $5 a month. Additionally, Apple offers a student discount on their hardware.
Students with an .edu email address can also download ‘Microsoft Office 360 for Student’ for free and have access to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
Adobe offers a 60 percent discount to students for their ‘all apps’ plan or their photography plan if a student verifies their subscription with an .edu email.
With the ubiquity of instant messaging, email is nearly becoming obsolete. However, an LACCD email has some other slightly less known benefits. We are slightly less broke, broke college students with a .edu email.
