What subject should I put in an email when contacting with professors/doctors?

[andrestoga]

Hi,

 

I want to know what subject line should I put in an email when contacting with professors/doctors?

 

I was thinking of "Interested in your lab"/"Interested in working in your lab" or "Prospective graduate student".

 

What do you think?

 

Best,

Edited January 20, 2015 by andrestoga

[geographyrocks]

I vote for Prospective Graduate Student.  There's no wondering about the contents of that email. 

[techboy]

I would add my last name as well.

I vote for Prospective Graduate Student. There's no wondering about the contents of that email.

[Asimio]

From Dr Might's post:
 

"A subject should be informative, and about 72 characters or less.

If the entire email fits in the subject, put it in the subject.

If you think that's rude, it's not.

If you insist that it's rude, put "Thanks!" in the body.

If the email fits in the subject, it takes a click out of processing it, and raises the probability of a reply.

(If the recipient gets hundreds of emails per day, clicks add up.)

If the email doesn't fit in the subject, the subject should contain the most critical details, such as the date, time and location of a meeting, or the top action item and deadline.

For example, don't send "Save the Date" as a subject.

Send "Event Title, Save the Date: Date."

In short, the subject must provide enough information for the recipient to know how to prioritize and act on an email quickly."

So I'd say the former, it makes the subject more specific. 

[sjoh197]

When I was emailing professors earlier last year... I talked with my advisor, and he told me that a good subject line was "Inquiry from a Potential/Prospective Graduate Student"

 

I used this for every email that I sent, and received a response from every (I really do mean every) single one. It seemed to work pretty well.