As a new student, you will receive an email that will be used for communication and signing-in to school-related services. This email will end in uscstudents.org, such as [email protected].

This email is known as a Single Sign-On (SSO) account because you can use it to sign in to many different services. To name a few, you will use one to sign in to Canvas, Google, Focus, Naviance, and more.

As a general rule of thumb, use your USC email for all student-related activities. Whether it be Desmos or Turnitin, you should use your school email. Please note that you will lose access to this email after you graduate. Don't use your USC email for services that you might still want access to, such as College Board, CommonApp, or other non-school-related services.

For more information, see What is a Single Sign-on (SSO) account?.

Accessing your email

To view your email, go to mail.google.com. Here you can view emails you've been sent and compose your own.

For more information on how to use Gmail, see the official help center.

Email tips

1. Try to check your email every school day during homeroom. Sometimes teachers send emails the night before and expect you to have read them before class.
2. Declutter your inbox by archiving and deleting emails. I recommend archiving most of your emails after you read them, but explicitly deleting spam. This way you can always see which emails you need to handle! It's also super satisfying when you archive the last email in your inbox and get the "No new mail!" message.
3. Create a signature in settings that automatically gets added to every email you send. This makes you look more professional and gives important context to the receiver. Here's an example signature: