Earlier this month, I received a hand-written thank you note in the mail from an undergraduate at Northwestern University, my alma mater.
That was impressive.
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| The personally written, but hardly personalized letter from a Northwestern undergraduate. |
Then I read the note – and if it wasn’t a verbatim transcription of a form letter, then I worry for the future of this self-described English major.
How utterly unimpressive.
Why bother with a form of intimate, personal connection when you saddle it with an impersonal form letter? Why go through the motions of making an emotional connection when you handcuff a student to so much sanitized white noise?
C’mon Wildcats: unleash these young adults to communicate from the heart! Or at least save yourself the postage.
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As someone who has written these letters for Northwestern… it is brutal. Student groups get paid $1/letter and are sent very strict guidelines on how the letters must appear. After you write 2 of these, to people you don't know for reasons you don't know, you just want to get it over with!