Surveys Lacking Professionalism Filling up Student Emails

Ask any Aurora High School Student or teacher to check their email and it is without a doubt that it will be filled with surveys conducted by students. However, many of them are simply disregarded, even when a survey only takes a few minutes to fill out. Almost all of the surveys have one thing in common; the lack of professionalism.

With the constant flow of surveys being dropped into Aurora High School students and staff’s email, many people ignore them due to the lack of professionalism within the surveys. It is common to receive a survey with no intro as to why the survey is being conducted in the first place, not to mention a follow up to the survey is clearly missing. The strong absence of professionalism not only deters people from answering the survey, but also causes many to delete all of the surveys filling up their inbox without a second thought. With no present elements of professionalism, the creators of the surveys lose a wider range of responses. However, students conducting the surveys are not overly distraught about the lack of responses due to the surveys not having a particular meaning to them, besides providing data for a project. Professionalism is not taken into account by most of the students for that reason.

While students may not be worried about the overall formality of the surveys, professionalism represents a person and reflects on his or her true values. From finding surveys with profile pictures portraying students with hoods covering half of their face to starting off a survey with “Hey!”, it is uncommon for anyone to delete them without a second thought. While these surveys may only be for a school project, the students are still representing themselves to their peers.

Professionalism, even within an email, represents students to their peers as well as the AHS staff. According to Rasmussen College, professionalism helps to represent a person better and help lead to better success.While the surveys may only be for a school project, the lack of professionalism leaves an impression based on small aspects such as an inappropriate profile picture. Students should take into account that teachers are seeing these surveys, which should deter them from starting of with such an informal lead along the lines of “Hey!”. A student would not want to show off a selfie they took to a teacher, so why should it be their profile picture that is being sent out with every email? Beyond these aspects, many of the surveys do not include an intro to explain what the survey is even for. This can lead to many people being hesitant about giving away their opinions on the subject.

While surveys do provide an easy way to receive data, it is important to always include professionalism to not only encourage more responses, but to also become well represented. Students must have a lesson in writing professionally, especially upperclassmen who will undoubtedly be emailing colleges in the future. How would colleges feel being sent an email from a student with a selfie as their profile picture?