Peter Brenton is our amazing general administrative contact for the department, and the person who takes care of the space. Pete sends an e-mail regarding spaces at the beginning of every school year. This information was gleaned from previous years' e-mails.
Whom to Contact (Pete Brenton)
- Assignments:
- The PSFC provides office space for Fusion students, see your supervisor for an office assignment in those areas.
- Professor Cappellaro has offices in building 26 and will assign offices to her own students there.
- Professor Yildiz has office spaces in building 13 and will assign offices to her own students there.
- All other students will need to contact the ANS Co-Presidents for an office assignment (NW12, NW13, NW14, Building 24).
- Contact Pete Brenton (email pbrenton (at) mit.edu, call 617-253-3185 or stop by 24-111) when you aren't sure who to ask, and when its clearly not an academic question (that's Clare Egan and Heather's Barry area). At the very bottom of this page are instructions on the heat and air conditioning operation, for those who have yet to master thermodynamics.
- Overall, please call or email Pete Brenton (for NSE spaces) and/or Facilities (Call FIXIT or 3-4948 or go to https://atlas.mit.edu/atlas/Main.action?tab=home&sub=group_servreq) if there is a problem with one of the below pieces of equipment, or any other facility emergency. Often people complain about the heat or A/C and often fixing the problem is a simple repair or inexpensive replacement, or even some basic instruction about proper use.
Basic rules about office space
Existing students, please be nice to incoming students and "share" the furnishings and space fairly with them.
Every NSE Graduate office should have the following;
- an operating phone (one per office, not one per person)
- one desk for each student
- one ergonomically good chair for each student (that is, a decent adjustable height office chair with arms)
- a working ethernet jack for each student.
- WiFi coverage.
- Trash cans, and recycling bins appropriate to the space.
- Blinds on external windows.
- A reasonably well working printer within a reasonable distance with a reasonable number of users.
- Working heat, electricity, A/C.
Let Pete Brenton know ASAP if any of these things are missing, not working, or working poorly. Also talk to Pete if you have special needs. See the end of this message before telling me the heat or A/C is broken.
Some offices are shabbier than others (they're older buildings that have seen a lot of students come and go). Pete Brenton has been renovating offices slowly, but it is expensive and takes time. Meanwhile you have some reasonable expectations you can act on; paint should not be peeling off, insulation around piping should be neat and nicely wrapped, walls should not have holes, pipes should not leak, windows that open should also close, your feet should be on solid flooring. These things can be repaired. Email or call Pete Brenton or go straight to facilities at 3-4948 or the website for reporting repairs at http://atlas.mit.edu.
Do's and Don'ts
- If you must rearrange the furniture, do not put anything in front of the radiators or air conditioners. This makes it impossible to change the air filters, to repair broken units, and/or blocks the warm or cold air from reaching most of the room.
- Do not put anything under ceiling mounted A/C units. They drip in humid months and can ruin your electronics.
Please let Pete Brenton know if you have any special office l needs. We will do our best to meet them. Pete make no promises, but he does like to make life easier. He won’t do Psets.
- Campus "standard" is to assign each student about 50 square feet, so there is not going to be a lot of room for additional furnishings, but ask away if you want. All requests for an in-office couch will be deleted before reading. Those you see in other offices were scrounged by students, not provided by the department, and will need to go to the dumpster when the space is needed for real live people. Occasionally your ANS student organization co-chairs will decide to put some of their hard-wrangled funds towards general use 'nice' furniture in public spaces (as seen in the ANS lounge). Other times Pete can be wheedled into such things (his wording, not ours). He’d rather buy people nice desk chairs though.
- If you enter via the NW12 front/side doors, please be aware this is a secure building and do not let anyone follow you in (that you don't know). Visitors and delivery people should ring the bell and go to the front desk. Don't let anyone in. Seriously, do not let them if you don't know them personally. Be rude if you must. Remember that the NRC regulates that facility (the MIT reactor) and they can be really cause serious issues if this is not being followed.
- Please do not store personal items in your office (that is, clothes, boxes full of books, exotic pets, personal radioactive waste, etc). Summertime and Winter Break in particular is when we do minor renovations where there may be only a week or two notice. If your stuff from your sublet-ed apartment is in storage bins in your office, Pete might need to haul it away (he could always use more stuff). Please do make your space comfortable for you to work in, within reason. Anything that is renovation-like, please clear with me first. Do your best to minimize damage to walls, floor, ceiling etc. Remember that when you leave, Pete Brenton has to sign your graduation paperwork before you get your degree. This is why. White glove inspections are mandatory.
- No bike storage in offices or hallways. In fact, it’s against fire code, since multiple bikes can be an evacuation hazard. Less importantly, (but important to *Pete*) lugging a bike through the halls leads to accidental dings and marks on the walls and floors. There also is not enough space. Leave your bike outside. Yes, several professors, who shall remain nameless, are bad boys and keep their bikes in their offices. Pete Brenton has told them not to. They are bad and don’t get cookies. Alas they won’t let Pete Brenton fire professors any more.
Be aware of your personal security on Albany Street, particularly after dark. Not only is this a city like any other, there is a “wet” homeless shelter down Albany Street. The Customers of that facility can be a bit, well, drunk, with predictable results. In fact, the ANS goes and feeds them once a month. Get to know your neighbors!...but don’t walk alone with then at night. Let me know right away of any security issue with the Albany Street buildings (or 24 for that matter). Doors should all close securely. The back doors have hold-open alarms, if you see people in the halls that look like they don’t belong please do not hesitate to call MIT Police; they would much rather respond to a couple of false alarms than see any of you get hurt. I won’t reiterate MIT saferide resources here, see MIT’s web page.
Services available, and how to handle issues
- Dirty floor: Your office might have a dirty floor. If so, leave a note on your door at night "Custodian, please clean the floor". you will find it sparkling clean the next day, or perhaps the day after. Similar services can be requested the same way.
- Trash removal: Trash removal in offices is every other day, but pickup is every day in kitchens and classrooms, so put smelly food trash in those rooms if you aren't sure it will be picked up that night.
- Mouse problem: We have, in the past, had mouse problems in all our buildings (usually in fall when it gets a little chilly out). Please do not leave food or food trash out. In fact, it is recommend against eating in your office at all, if possible. If you do see mice, feel free to call or email facilities or me for extermination services - be prepared to empty a trap or two (or just live in peace with the mice, but don't feed them!). Note that the Stata Center, when brand new, had a serious mouse problem and over 1000 traps were placed there, so it’s not just that the buildings are old.
- Printer: There is a copier/scanner/printer in the NW12 reading room for general use. There is paper in NW12-326 that can be taken for the copier or any NSE printer. You may also take paper for “department use” from any of the other copiers. We hope and expect that you will make every attempt to be reasonable with your paper needs and copier usage. In other words; print your thesis at home and duplicate it at copy tech. There are three other copiers belonging to the department, one in NW14 and two in 24. All of these machines are capable of scanning documents and emailing them to you in pdf format. The NW14 copier has a copy code due to the high volume we saw there. Rachel Batista supports that machine and can provide code to you if you need it.
- NW12 reading room: There is a reading room in NW12 (primarily a fission resource), but that facility is not currently staffed and no new acquisitions are planned thanks to the plethora of online materials available. Books in open shelves may be borrowed and returned on the honor system. Contact me if Pete Brenton want something that is locked behind the glass doors. There is an online component at; http://mightylib.mit.edu/ for some of the materials. There is a separate excellent library in the PSFC in NW17 focused on Fusion. Additionally, Chris Sherratt (our MIT Library liaison) is an excellent advisor on using the MIT libraries and other resources.
- Computers: computers are a bit of a fuzzy area; generally research supervisors provide machines to students who are doing research for them, but it is not guaranteed (they do not always have the funds), and if you do not have a research supervisor yet, what do you do? You ask Rachel Morton (rachel@mit.edu) to scrounge one for you, but don't expect too much. All in all, you are better off using your own laptop or desktop for the first year, if you have one. We cannot “guarantee” a computer for every graduate student like Chemical Engineering (who do so through an alumni bequest), but we do our best and I’d like to hear when it does not work out well.
Environmental systems: heat, radiators, A/C, ventilation, windows
This is primarily for the people in NW12, NW13, NW14 and Building 24.
- NW14 slider: Our suite in this building has one simple slider in each room that will make your office either too hot or too cold. It looks like a light dimmer. Have fun with that. In extreme cases I can have facilities adjust the range up or down a degree or two.
- HEAT: We use steam heat on campus, which is possibly the worst method of providing comfort cooling, but hey, it was installed in the early part of the 20th century, so we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future. It is delivered through big cast iron radiators. There is usually a control knob on the side or under the radiator with arbitrary numbers that substitute for an actual thermostatic control. Steam radiator heating is *very* slow to adjust to a new setting, so when you change the setting move the dial only one or two numbers at a time and allow at least a half hour to see the result of your adjustment, or else you may find yourself in a sauna quite unexpectedly. Make sure there is nothing on top of the radiator (especially a fishbowl, that was a tragic mistake), and keep the area in front of the radiator clear to allow air to circulate in the room. Note that both the controller and the pressure release valves (at the other end of the radiator from the controller) fail regularly for no particular reason, so if you walk into your office and its 85 degrees F and there’s a whistle like a teakettle, email me and/or call facilities.
- Steam radiators: they often make a lot of noise when they are turned on for the first time in the season. This sounds exactly like there is some guy in the basement hitting the pipes with a hammer. Generally speaking this should go away within the first few hours (but can be really loud until then). Those of you who have taken thermodynamics can explain why this happens to those who have not. MIT turns on the heat only after the temperature dips pretty low (like 50F) but then it is "on" for the winter. Conveniently, steam heat is usually either too hot or not hot enough.
- Thermostat: many offices deceptively have a thermostat on the wall. Sometimes these have some influence over the temperature, but often only either the heat or the cooling. Your best bet is to start the thermostat off between 65 and 70 degrees F (most U.S. thermostats do not have "C" indicated) and adjust slowly from that starting point. Most people find this a comfortable range. You can often see the control lines for the thermostat and work out what it does or does not control.
- AIR CONDITIONING (A/C): Almost every office has a steel box called a fan coil unit either hanging from the ceiling or sitting on the floor. This unit is just a fan and some cooling coils which are piped for chilled water (and sometimes hot water for heating). MIT generally turns off the chilled water supply (for A/C) in fall and turns it on again in the spring, so although the fan will run, no actual cooling will happen if you operate the unit in winter (but knock yourself out, I don’t mind, and it makes the air move a bit). A/C units are operated by a switch either on the wall or, if the box is floor mounted, on the unit itself, often under a small door, which occasionally is stuck or conveniently painted closed. The fan has settings for low, medium and high, and none of those will be perfectly comfortable, so most of us get our once-per half hour exercise getting up and turning the fan on or off. The fan needs to be on for any cooling to happen. Confusingly, some A/C units also seem to be controlled by a thermostat (but only if the control lines lead from the thermostat to the A/C unit). In those cases adjusting the thermostat has a small chance of changing how often cold water is running through the unit in an attempt to keep the temperature to specific setting, but does not affect the fan speed, which you still need to adjust using a low-medium-high switch.
- Keep the area in front of floor mounted A/C units clear. The units have a filter that requires changing every six months, and they can't get at it if your desk is in the way. Also, if the unit breaks they cannot get at it to repair it.
- Be aware that air conditioners generate condensation which is drained away through a small pipe, which is just small enough to clog up when enough dust has accumulated in it. Every single A/C unit will at some point leak water on whatever is below it. Please call me and/or enter a repair into the Facilities web site if this occurs. Always refrain from putting electronics or other water-damageable items under the ceiling mounted A/C units. Do not leave these units running when you are not in your office.
- VENTILATION: You will see in many places a grille on the wall that might just have ‘fresh’ air coming out of it. This is simply a fresh air circulation duct. It is intended to bring fresh air into closed spaces from outside (after heating it to room temperature). Please do not block these vents.
- WINDOWS: We are fortunate that most of our offices have opening windows. Fortunately they also close (usually). Do not leave them open when you leave the office, especially on particularly cold or hot days. In particular in NW the amount of dust coming off the tracks will leave you with a fine grit on your desk when you return.
Please be considerate of your office mates when making adjustments to the temperature.
Energy conservation
The following are energy saving requests: Remember that your tuition pays in part for MIT's energy costs
- Please shut off the air conditioning when no one is in the room
- Please do not run air conditioning in the summer or the heat in the winter with the windows open.
- Please do not operate air conditioners and heat at the same time.
- If your office will be empty for an extended period of time, lower the heat setting and close all windows.