Once again Missouri Southern students are migrating to a new e-mail system. Beginning March 2 all students will be on the new “mymail.mssu” system or have nothing at all.

Since the new e-mail is not based in-house, it should free up the Information Technology System department at Southern for other things. ITS will no longer host a backlog of student messages. When computer services go down on campus, student e-mail will no longer be on the list of items affected. Students will no longer be limited by current file-size attachment restrictions. But keeping up with technology, or even which e-mail address is yours, is the problem of the student. Not all students keep up with everything.

Some students are confused by the change. Some do not check their old Southern e-mail, although if they did they would see the notification for the new one. Some only ask if this change will affect their Facebook account and when the answer is no, they say forget it.

Professors need a functioning address to contact students. The University needs a way to send out important messages. As students we may think we have all the communication we need, but sometimes it pays not to leave it all to the computer.