To All the Emails We've Deleted Before

Regardless of your individual email habits and preferences, you likely wake up to a massive flood of emails: piles and piles of “unread” messages from students you’ve never met and organizations you’ve never heard of. While it’s satisfying to just swipe those emails directly into the trash, once in a while you come across a diamond in the rough, featuring a professor’s answer to your frantic 3 a.m. question about the p-set that you should have started a week ago. Besides these “gem” emails, we can all agree that the majority of emails make us regret adding our emails to Visitas lists all those years ago. Without further ado, to all the emails we’ve deleted before…

The Canvas Email

There’s nothing like the immediate fight-or-flight reaction that rushes through your body at the sight of “assignment X has been graded.” Sure, we appreciate the notification, but we don’t need to be constantly reminded of the psets due this week or the uploading of lecture slides we just slept through. We recommend taking a look at Canvas notification settings and adjusting them accordingly.

The LinkedIn Email

We, too, would love to join the LinkedIn network of that random person from high school, but do we need an email to remind us? And if LinkedIn wants to let us know that we appeared in a search recently, we would appreciate the tea on who searched us without having to upgrade to LinkedIn Pro.

The [HOUSE LIST] Email

Yes, house emails could theoretically foster a sense of community through widespread communication, but the only emails we really care about are the ones that tell us where to find free cookies on campus. Hm, if only there was an email list that specifically announced where to find free food on campus (shout-out to Harvard Today).

The Random Concentration Department You Expressed Interest in on the First Day at Harvard Email

While it’s nice to know about what’s going on in different departments, it’s already hard enough to keep up with your own concentration!

The “OK” Email

Receiving one of these semi-passive aggressive as a response to a well-crafted email is nothing short of gut-wrenching, but hey, at least it’s a response?

The Makes You Feel Special Until You Realize It’s Generic and You’re Not Being Specifically Recruited by [Insert Prestigious Club on Campus] Email

It may be hard to accept, but those finance and consulting clubs on campus probably have no idea who you are. Chances are, you, your roommates, and perhaps the entire Class of 2023 received the email as well.