Students
Email addresses for students are a format that has first initial and last name where possible (when another person hasn't been assigned the same email address). For example, "Melody Linda Smith" might have "msmith@fredonia.edu" as an email address. But if that address was already provided to Mark Smith, then Melody's email may be something like "mlsmith@fredonia.edu."
Melody Smith will also get an eServices id to use for logging in. This will be in the format of first four characters of last name and last four characters of Fredonia ID. So Melody Smith may have an eServices ID of "smit1234." This value is used for logging in to many services. Some of them require the format "smit1234" and some require the format "smit1234@fredonia.edu." Note that "smit1234@fredonia.edu" looks very much like an email address, and indeed, it can be used that way. For Melody, email sent to "mlsmith@fredonia.edu" and email sent to "smit1234@fredonia.edu" will go into the same inbox. Melody will always use "smit1234" to log on to her email, and will never log in with "mlsmith" or "mlsmith@fredonia.edu."
However, Google defaults to using the account name as the email address when you first start using it. You can easily update it to use your email address. Here's how:
Click on the gear icon in Google
Click on "See all settings"
Select the "Accounts" tab
Now, in the "Send Mail As" section, use the controls there to 1) add your email address 2) make your email address the default and 3) select "Always reply from default address"
It's that easy to have a much nicer email format published to your contacts than something based on your account name!
Employees
Those who are employed on campus will be provided email addresses like "FirstName.LastName@fredonia.edu." Again, the need to avoid collisions may affect the actual email address. For employees, the eServices ID is based on the first eight characters of their last name. Again, the need to avoid collisions may mean that John Lewis may have an eServices ID of "lewisj" rather than "lewis."
Employees should follow the same instructions to change their "Send-as" and "Reply-as" email address as described above, to use the professional format based on FirstName.LastName@fredonia.edu. Similarly, though, employees will log into systems with their account name "lewisj" or "lewisj@fredonia.edu" and never with the email address.