Yes the company owns the bandwidth, the server, software, but do they actually own a piece of mail?
Yes, they own the mail. Remember this IS a business we are talking about, not a school. In a business they are paying you to do actual work. Not to read personal e-mail, or view porn (unless of course you work for Playboy, Penthouse, etc., then I guess the latter is part of your job description).
You are given that e-mail account for one specific purpose--to use for business correspondence. Therefore, the e-mail address is NOT your personal property, you didn't pay for it--then you don't own it. It's "on loan" to you until you no longer work there. So, they do have the right to monitor thier own property.
If you are concerned about your privacy, use your personal account from your ISP for personal e-mails(I was getting ready to say, get a Hotmail account--but, after this past week I don't think that would be to private either:).
Also, unless you are planning to teach getting a Ph.D. isn't a great idea. For the simple fact that most businesses won't be willing to part with the extra cash that they would have to pay you, when they could get someone without the Ph.D. to do the same job for less money. One of the professors I had at school said that his Ph.D. has been like "the kiss of death." He is the type of person who likes to work "in the field" more than he likes teaching or writing books (he's written a couple on Java). But, because of his degree he was turned down for several jobs--the reason he was given was "you're over-qualified." Which is pretty much a slap in the face...
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Yes, they own the mail. Remember this IS a business we are talking about, not a school. In a business they are paying you to do actual work. Not to read personal e-mail, or view porn (unless of course you work for Playboy, Penthouse, etc., then I guess the latter is part of your job description).
You are given that e-mail account for one specific purpose--to use for business correspondence. Therefore, the e-mail address is NOT your personal property, you didn't pay for it--then you don't own it. It's "on loan" to you until you no longer work there. So, they do have the right to monitor thier own property.
If you are concerned about your privacy, use your personal account from your ISP for personal e-mails(I was getting ready to say, get a Hotmail account--but, after this past week I don't think that would be to private either :).
Also, unless you are planning to teach getting a Ph.D. isn't a great idea. For the simple fact that most businesses won't be willing to part with the extra cash that they would have to pay you, when they could get someone without the Ph.D. to do the same job for less money. One of the professors I had at school said that his Ph.D. has been like "the kiss of death." He is the type of person who likes to work "in the field" more than he likes teaching or writing books (he's written a couple on Java). But, because of his degree he was turned down for several jobs--the reason he was given was "you're over-qualified." Which is pretty much a slap in the face...