Road 2 Graduation

What is a Gmail Account?

A Gmail account is an email account with google, that has tons of space and combats spam.

Why should students have a Gmail account?

• You can Name it – You can have an account that is a name you want (within reason and if it’s available). Having johncormak@gmail.com might be what you want, or predigger@gmail.com could also be a name that you want, either one could be available for you. If not, you could choose john-cormak@gmail.com, or john.cormak@gmail.com to setup your Gmail account.

• You get tons of space – When you register for a Gmail account you get up to 4GB worth of space for all of your emails and attachments – that’s some huge storage space plus, google are constantly updating and expanding storage.

• Send large files – Sending large files with Gmail is a dream, as you can attach your file, upload and send it – go and make a coffee – come back and you’re done. The email system won’t crash like outlook or windows mail will – this is particularly good if you’re working on group work and have to send a project to your group members.

• Chat away – Gmail offers a chat facility to chat to other people on the web, a nifty program.

• Find what you need – Remember you got that email from a while ago, well google’s mega search engine will trawl through your mail to find what you need, wanting only one keyword. I remember looking through my outlook inbox trying to find an email that I needed – this result was that I was disappointed and it took me ages.

• Reduce the Spam – If you’re like me then you will certainly get annoyed with spam emails coming your way and landing in your inbox. Gmail has Google behind it and can instantly detect spam email being sent from a spammer. It will reject any spammy emails straight away and won’t even deliver it to your inbox. Worried about some of your ‘genuine’ emails not being delivered, then don’t be as google reviews the web every day, so they’re a little educated as to what is and isn’t spam.

• Stars are important – You can use the star tag to note useful or important emails to help remind you later. It could be an important email from another student about a web resource such as the road2graduation blog, or it may be an email from an employer that wants some questions answered, but you need to formulate some responses and answer it later; whichever it is, starring an email allows you to note important communications.

• Label it – Similar to tagging on social media websites, gmail allows you to label your emails. Sorting them into different categories can be a huge advantage to students, as you can separate different emails from friends, college students, and university, into separate ‘areas’ for you to view tomorrow or the next day.

Disadvantage

Similar to other software applications that you use on the web, such as face book and my space, Google will have access to all information about you, and your privacy may not be as private as you would’ve thought. However, I don’t think this is the bad thing about Gmail. So, what is? The advertisements when you log into your account. A lot of people argue with me about this and explain that the textlink advertising is placed in googlemail to make it free for users, still, advertising really annoys me unless I want to see it – guess that’s just me. If the small adverts keep Gmail free for all of us then I’ll just have to put up with it and get on quietly – ah, well.

Changes from last year

One major change from 2006 is that anyone can sign up for a Gmail (or googlemail) account and you don’t need to wait for an invite – that was silly I thought! Google is integrating more and more other services with Gmail and I expect more changes and better services in the future. Some colleges in the US are enabling their student’s college email to be setup on gmail and using the gmail software as a ‘template’ – pretty nifty if you ask me, and shows that the program is reliable. With all the other applications google has to offer, such as google scholar, translate and Google Talk, I expect google will be influencing more and more students to use their services interchangeably in the future.

Remember: When signing up for a Google mail account try not to make the name a strange or confusing one like – ghyu2234908@gmail.com, or studenttart@gmail.com (even though you might be ;-)) as it may deter prospective employers and people may forget your email address.

Links

Google University offers Gmail for College Students

Useful services offered by Google for College/University Students

Gmail driving Google Apps adoption at college

Tags: gmail, student