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> Can I continue to forward my email to my university address [which then forwards to my personal address]? What is the usecase to have the university address

> Can I continue to forward my email to my university address [which then forwards to my personal address]? What is the usecase to have the university address middleman instead of forwarding directly to the personal? And what would the first forwarder in that chain be, since its not the sender (it says forward, not send)?

listenallyall 3y ago
Prestige and permanence. Pre-Gmail/Hotmail, you lost your ISP-based email address if you ended your subscription (AOL, Earthlink, etc) or moved (Time Warner Cable, Southwestern Bell, etc). University addresses were promised "for life."
- raybb 3y ago
  Know of any Uni addresses that were promised for life but no longer are?
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    At least a few in the UK that I’m aware of (I'd say which ones but I don't really want to dox myself).
  - m000 3y ago
    The for-life email address was typically a perk given to people who were affiliated with a university when internet was still fairly young (think late 80s and 90s). This was a nice perk, because web-mail was not as common and advanced as it is today. And outside web-mail, email addresses were generally very volatile. The main reason universities couldn't keep doing this is that they eventually ran out of email addresses. Some may have tried to continue the practice, by adding e.g. some university-specific id to the email address. But this makes the email address much less desirable for using after your graduation. In the meantime, web-mail offerings had become arguably more advanced than whatever the university offered. So it made sense to just discontinue the practice altogether. I was in the "lucky" batch that got a for-life email address. But it was still an opt-in feature. I.e. when the university decided that the email naming scheme was not sustainable, it asked all alumni if they would be interested to keep their forwarding address or not. Many had already dissociated themselves enough with the university to not take the offer.
  - mkj 3y ago
    University of Western Australia is one.
inhumantsar 3y ago
while hiring, I've seen plenty of devs continue to put their ivy league email address on their CV years after completing their degree. one in particular iirc was using an MIT email over a decade after attending but had never completed more than a year of undergrad there.

listenallyall 3y ago

Prestige and permanence. Pre-Gmail/Hotmail, you lost your ISP-based email address if you ended your subscription (AOL, Earthlink, etc) or moved (Time Warner Cable, Southwestern Bell, etc). University addresses were promised "for life."

raybb 3y ago
Know of any Uni addresses that were promised for life but no longer are?
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  At least a few in the UK that I’m aware of (I'd say which ones but I don't really want to dox myself).
- m000 3y ago
  The for-life email address was typically a perk given to people who were affiliated with a university when internet was still fairly young (think late 80s and 90s). This was a nice perk, because web-mail was not as common and advanced as it is today. And outside web-mail, email addresses were generally very volatile. The main reason universities couldn't keep doing this is that they eventually ran out of email addresses. Some may have tried to continue the practice, by adding e.g. some university-specific id to the email address. But this makes the email address much less desirable for using after your graduation. In the meantime, web-mail offerings had become arguably more advanced than whatever the university offered. So it made sense to just discontinue the practice altogether. I was in the "lucky" batch that got a for-life email address. But it was still an opt-in feature. I.e. when the university decided that the email naming scheme was not sustainable, it asked all alumni if they would be interested to keep their forwarding address or not. Many had already dissociated themselves enough with the university to not take the offer.
- mkj 3y ago
  University of Western Australia is one.

inhumantsar 3y ago

while hiring, I've seen plenty of devs continue to put their ivy league email address on their CV years after completing their degree. one in particular iirc was using an MIT email over a decade after attending but had never completed more than a year of undergrad there.