After my parents registered for the Indiana “Do Not Call” list to avoid those annoying dinnertime calls, I was sad. I missed seeing “Unknown Caller” pop up on the caller ID.

I missed pressing random buttons to irritate the man on the other line. I missed informing them that Mr. Baker could not come to the phone because he just died in a freak bungee jumping accident.

And then I came to college. Suddenly everyone wants a piece of my wallet, despite the fact that it’s so thin it makes Paris Hilton look fat. Telemarketers aware of my status as a college student call almost daily to sign me up for a new Visa card or take a survey about politics.

Spammers use my school e-mail address to inform me about new ways to increase the size of my, well, you know what. Pizza companies and campus organizations bombard my mailbox with flashy flyers. Panhandlers on the streets reeking of booze ask me if I can spare a quarter.

True, their propositions are entertaining at first. I love to watch song and dance numbers by “Shoe Shinin'” Lenny, and I giggle every time I see a euphemism for penis in the subject line of my inbox. But after a while of having your last name butchered or listening to rehearsed spiels about downtown Broadway plays, they get old.

Considering college students are notoriously poor, calling us for cash will be as successful as me asking University President Henry Bienen for a rebate on my tuition. After all, it’s not easy to rake in the dough while signing in late-night guests at Allison, and I’m not going to squander my money on just anything – especially if it’s a suspicious email about an overseas business deal.

The only thing that’s worse than the complete disregard for common courtesy of telemarketers and spammers is that they waste our valuable time. It’s hard enough to balance class, extracurricular activities and a social life without having to sift through pointless flyers in my mailbox or fight through a sea of men jingling plastic cups filled with pennies to get to CVS.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned at college, it’s that nothing is more annoying than waking up at 9 a.m. because a guy in a bank office wants to chat about boosting my credit. Telemarketers, spammers and panhandlers have quickly become as welcome in my life as mosquitoes, pop-up ads or an Ashlee Simpson CD.

But fortunately one of those is about to come to an end as Northwestern’s new junk mail filter goes into effect Monday. The system uses several filters and sorts them based on the probability that they’re junk, significantly decreasing the number of times I’ll have to hit the delete button daily.

The system isn’t perfect and won’t stop every phony message from ending up in my inbox, but it’s a start. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer emails I get about breast implants or free vacations, the better.

Now if only NU could do something about those pesky telemarketers.

Matt Baker is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].