I have two email addresses from the university. One is a departmental account, and the other is a general university email account.
The former is in the form of firstname.lastname@department_name.example.edu, while the latter is [email protected].
The department address is a bit more professional, but they have annoying spam filters that delay mail for arbitrary and varying amounts of time, so I tend to use the general one for most day-to-day things, and the departmental one for important things like applications.
However, my brain occasionally mixes things up, whereby I type [email protected], which is invalid. This does not look good on applications, because then I need to write to the admissions committee, admit my foolishness, and beg that they change the address on record so they can actually email me back.
I need a better brain.