Checklist for Graduating Students

As you prepare to graduate from Goshen College, take the following steps to make sure you have what you need before you leave. All ITS services (student computer account, GC online account, Email access, print balance, etc.) will be disabled six months after your last day of classes, except as stated below. All personal files on your M: Drive and W: Drive will be deleted one year after your last day of classes.

Forward Your GC Emails and Inform Others of Your New Address

You will only be able to access GC webmail for six months after your last day of classes. After six months, any email messages still stored in webmail will be deleted. Before that time, be sure to forward to yourself any old email messages you wish to keep, or use our archive tool to download a .zip file containing all your webmail. If you set up a forwarding address before that time, any new emails will be forwarded to your new address for up to one year after your last day of classes.

For example, if your last day of classes is May 15th, webmail will be disabled on November 15th. Your new messages can continue to be forwarded to a new email account until May 15th of the following year. After that date, all email sent to your GC email account will be bounced back to the sender. You will not be able to retrieve old email after the six-month period has expired.

To Forward your new email:

Set up a new email account (YahooMail, GMail, Hotmail, or an ISP account such as Verizon) if you don’t have one yet.
Log on to GC Online. Under Personal Services, go to Forward E-mail and enter your new E-mail address. Click Submit. Now, any incoming mail will be sent to your new email address.
(Note: do not click "Send a Copy to Local Address")
To inform others of your new address, Log on to GC Online. Under Personal Services, go to Vacation Message. Check the box to enable vacation message, then type in your message containing your new email address in the message window. Set starting time (this is up to you) and end time (six months after your last day of classes). Submit your message.
Also, be sure to forward to your new email account any current email messages you will need.

To Archive your old email (Windows users):

Login to GConline. Under the Personal Services section, click on Request Email Archive, then click on the Request Email Archive button.
When you click on the button, your name will be added to a script that runs overnight to prepare archive files. After the script runs, you will receive an automatic email directing you to the location of your .zip file.
When you receive the email message, click on the link and Save to Disk. Be sure to note where the file is being saved on your computer.
You can either leave the file on your computer or burn it to CD for later access.
To access your email files, double-click the folder to open it. Click on File/Extract All and save the mailboxes.
Open the folder and move the mailbox files into the mail directory of another email client, such as Outlook or Eudora. You will need to make sure the archived mailboxes have a unique name that is different from any of the files in the mail folder to avoid overwriting mailboxes with the same name.
Once this is done, you will be able to open your mail client and read old email.
Note: You will not be able to open these email messages in a web-based email client such as Gmail or Yahoo because you won't have a way to upload files to their email server.

To Archive your old email (Mac users):

Login to GConline. Under the Personal Services section, click on Request Email Archive, then click on the Request Email Archive button.
When you click on the button, your name will be added to a script that runs overnight to prepare archive files. After the script runs, you will receive an automatic email directing you to the location of your .zip file.
When you receive the email message, click on the link. The Mac will automatically download the folder to your desktop.
Double-click the folder to open it and rename your mailboxes so the archived mailboxes have unique names that are different from any of the files in your Mac mail to avoid overwriting mailboxes with the same name.
Open Mac mail, and click on File/Import Mailboxes, then select Other from the list. Click Continue.
Pick the downloaded folder on your desktop, then click Choose.
Select items to Import, then click Continue.
After that, you will find your mailboxes in the Import folder in Mac mail.
Note: You will not be able to open these email messages in a web-based email client such as Gmail or Yahoo because you won't have a way to upload files to their email server.

NOTE* Remember to remove yourself from all listservs you no longer want to receive mail from before leaving.

Keep a Copy of M:\My Documents

Your M: drive will be disabled six months after your last day of classes. You’ll want to download the content of your My Document folder and personal webpages to a personal disk. You can either copy the content to your personal computer, or you can burn it onto a CD or a DVD. You can also access and download M: Drive content from off-campus at https://websamba.goshen.edu. All files in your My Documents folder will be deleted after one year.

Keep a Copy of your Web Pages

Be sure to copy all your files in M:\Web Pages\mypages to CD or DVD. From off-campus, you can access and download M: Drive content at https://websamba.goshen.edu. If you need assistance following the instructions, see the help page. You will be able to edit your web pages for six months, and they will be viewable for one year. After that, they will be deleted from the web server.

Take Advantage of Student Discounts on Computing Products

Through the Microsoft Student Select Program, currently enrolled students are able to purchase Microsoft products at a savings of over 85% off the retail price. Take advantage of the discount before you graduate! Click here for more information.

Other software titles can be purchased from the college bookstore, or online from JourneyEd, Academic Superstore, or Apple. You can also receive educational discounts on computers and peripherals from Hewlett Packard, Dell, and Apple.

Alumni Services - Stay in touch with alumni through our online community

The Alumni Office understands that along with an excellent education and life-changing values, you are leaving Goshen College with special relationships--relationships you want to endure long after you and your classmates have scattered across the globe. That's why we have created a special online community just for Goshen College alumni. Register at
https://mygc.goshen.edu/alumni/Alumni_Online and you will be able to update your contact information, search for friends, network with alumni you've never met, post your own news or read news from classmates.