Get in the habit of checking your email often. Email is the main way that you will receive important, often time-sensitive, announcements from faculty and staff. These emails will go to your @illinois.edu address, not your personal email. Likewise, you should use your school address for sending emails to faculty and staff. It is important that you either setup your school address to forward all emails to an account you actually check or to start checking your school email account frequently. Details on how to enable forwarding are available at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957.