<p>If you go to Columbia, do you find it annoying that they force you to use your UNI (your initials + a random number) as "@columbia.edu" address? They don't even have a way to create an alias so that student's email address would be easier to remember ... </p>
<p>My undergradate school has much better IT infrastructure than Columbia....</p>
<p>Not really, i think it’s kinda cool! :)</p>
<p>“Better infrastructure” What?</p>
<p>The only con is that you can’t brag and say, “Oh yeah, just hit me up at <a href=“mailto:JohnSmith@columbia.edu”>JohnSmith@columbia.edu</a>” What does it really matter?</p>
<p>It’s lamer since they switched to a new system and the minimum number was 2000. Pre 2002 or 2003, the numbers were smaller and it was easier to remember peoples’ emails.</p>
<p>PS I had [my first name]@columbia.edu . I was in a secret kool kids klub. Unfortunately, I lost it upon graduation.</p>
<p>Also, does it still work to email <a href=“mailto:First.Last@columbia.edu”>First.Last@columbia.edu</a> if your name is unique? It used to.</p>
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<p>Um, it’s nice to be able to memorize your closer friends’ email addresses. I still know the UNIs of the 8-10 Columbia friends I talk to the most.</p>
<p>Good point C2002…that does sort of suck.</p>
<p>It matters because it’s easier to remember. </p>
<p>Also, after you graduate, you can’t do a lifetime forwarding at columbia (only through Columbia Alum Association), so you can’t put your columbia address on your resume when you apply for a job after you are done with the school… </p>
<p>At my undergraduate school, you can get keep the same address for lifetime-forwarding with the same address that you used when you went to school there. </p>
<p>And I haven’t mentioned how outdated the SSOL looks comparing to the interface that my undergraduate school uses…</p>
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<p>What the f? This is completely false.</p>
<p>How so? </p>
<p>After you graduate, you can no longer use <a href=“mailto:uni@columbia.edu”>uni@columbia.edu</a>. They only allow you to use <a href=“mailto:uni@caa.columbia.edu”>uni@caa.columbia.edu</a>. (alum association).</p>
<p>Ouch, can anyone else provide more color here? This supports what you say: [Columbia</a> Connection - The site for all alumni of Columbia University](<a href=“http://alumni.columbia.edu/access/s2_2.html]Columbia”>http://alumni.columbia.edu/access/s2_2.html) . But it’s certainly a recent change, and that’s totally lame. It looks tacky, and it’s hard to give people over the phone “c a a dot” junk; at least stanford’s alumni.stanford.edu looks respectable (and kinda cool).</p>
<p>I sure hope they don’t retroactively switch the older alums over; my <a href=“mailto:uni@columbia.edu”>uni@columbia.edu</a> works as of today!</p>
<p>What was the policy regarding this when you graduated? </p>
<p>If I were Lee Bolinger, I’d re-vamp the entire IT department…</p>
<p>c02 and wifey, i don’t think you read the bottom part then…</p>
<p>E-mail Forwarding</p>
<p>Columbia still offers e-mail forwarding, which allows you to maintain an address of <a href=“mailto:YOURUNI@columbia.edu”>YOURUNI@columbia.edu</a> no matter what internet service provider you use. </p>
<p>So for example - i have a @caa.columbia.edu address and a @columbia.edu address - but i have both fwd to my gmail, and use filters to give each email a specific label. so in my case, all the alumni newsletters and stuff go to my @caa addy, and then any friend sends it to the regular <a href=“mailto:uni@columbia.edu”>uni@columbia.edu</a>.</p>
<p>further you don’t have to use the @caa stuff - in fact you have a choice of what email if any you want the university to use; just go into your profile and designate your preferred email address. its just an option if you want it.</p>
<p>as for the uni - i know folks today because of their uni and by their uni - and a lot more than just 8-10. even today a lot of friends use their uni alphanumeric as their gmail or something like that.</p>
<p>i think columbia IT folks chose the uni system to have a unique name/number. it used to be that it went in order of who had the same initials. which was nice then, but they then switched (can’t figure out any annoucement why) to the 4 number system. my guess is that it makes it difficult for a random hacker to potentially steal. its also important to note that UNI is the official gateway to all the password protected parts of the website. so finding something that is very individualized, and yet hard to decipher might have its advantages. could they use another system? i’m at another school that lets you pick your own and with aliases, it is certainly cool, but then again it locks me out if i screw up entering my password once.</p>
<p>personally i don’t mind, you adjust.</p>
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<p>No, they switched to a different process/system and needed consistency in the new counters. At the time no set of initials was in the 2000s (I have some friends who were in the 1500s), so they just decided to start the countering at 2001. It has nothing to do with hacking. UNIs are available on the directory; there’s nothing secret about them. It didn’t require an announcement, either.</p>
<p>I don’t mind it either. i just think it’s lame comparing to what MANY OTHER big-time universities are doing… </p>
<p>But it’s better to have a way to create an email alias for the purpose of remembering. I don’t think having an alias would do any harm in terms of security. You still use your UNI as a login to many university’s services. Besides, if you have an alias, you don’t have to give away your UNI every time you give someone your email address.</p>
<p>why, would you rather be <a href=“mailto:wifey9999999@columbia.edu”>wifey9999999@columbia.edu</a>?</p>
<p>of course I’d choose something that’s easy to remember as alias (such as first initial + last name)…</p>
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<p>Columbia doesn’t have aliases not because of security but because it’s hard to administer. It’s a pain to deal with rules on which aliases are allowed – like if people start sticking 69 or 420 after their names or using other inappropriate things… or if they’re just annoying and obnoxious like Ko0lKiD…</p>
<p>That would be a terrible excuse for not administering email alias… </p>
<p>Almost all other major universities allow email alias to their students, and a world-class university like Columbia doesn’t have capable IT personnel to do it? </p>
<p>Like I said, I’d re-vamp the entire IT department if I were Lee Bollinger. </p>
<p>And Columbia’s interface of SSOL doesn’t really impress me either…</p>
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<p>You’d remember your email better, sure. But then how easy do you think it will be to remember your UNI when you need to access other important parts of the columbia website? At least making the email address your UNI helps memorization.</p>
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<p>I hear CUIT is working on a Sakai project to combine Courseworks and SSOL into one (and possibly cubmail too). Cubmail is a piece of crap, e.g. once it had glitch and deleted the message I was writing.</p>
<p>It’s not about me remembering my email… it’s more about friends/family… etc. </p>
<p>And I agree that cubmail doesn’t impress me either…</p>