Things to do after arriving on campus

This section provides some items for you to consider once you are on campus.

First a quick word about the transportation options from Boston Logan Airport to campus:

• Public transportation (~45 mins to MIT campus, currently free): take Silver Line bus from Logan airport to South Station, and transfer onto the Red Line subway inbound direction, get off at Kendall/MIT stop.  
• Taxi (~15 mins to MIT campus when no traffic, ~$30-45)
• Uber or Lyft or Fasten (?).   Logan airport does not allow commercial vehicles to pick up passengers unless they are licensed as livery drivers/vehicles (like limos).  Dropoffs by non-livery vehicles is allowed.
  • Uber.  Because of the Logan airport restrictions, UberBlack (limos) is typically the only way to call for an Uber.  Last I checked (Jan 2016) the cost was estimated to be in the $60-80 arena.   On occasion, requesting an UberX might find one of the limo drivers accepting the fare (that happened with me twice) in early 2015, but not in the last 3 times I tried since September 2015.   On those more recent unsuccessful occasions, the Uber app indicated no cars were available when requesting an UberX.
  • Fasten.  According to what I learned from a recent Uber ride (where the driver works Uber, Lyft and Fasten), Fasten is available from the airport.  The driver also said that Fasten is often the cheapest in the area, particularly during the peak periods.  Fasten is a new Boston Uber-like company which is trying to grow its customer and driver base.  I haven't yet tried Fasten.
  • Lyft.  I haven't tried Lyft from Logan, so perhaps someone else can chime in here.

For All Incoming Grad Students, Consider the Following:

• Get MIT ID ASAP – the card office is located in the student center (W20-021, baseoment of Stratton student center, hours are M-F 8:30am-4:30pm). Having an ID gives you access to everything, so you definitely want to do it earlier than later. If you live in a dorm, make sure you talk to the front desk after getting your ID and they will have you fill out a piece of paper and in a week you will have MIT ID access to your dorm building (before that you need to use your key to enter your dorm building as opposed to swiping ID).
• Attend the departmental orientation. You can find current ANS orientation agenda here: 2015 ANS Welcome Letter.pdf
• Attend GSC orientation (optional): I mark this orientation optional because I don't recall learning anything specific from it. The grad 101 and 102 sessions have not changed much in the last two years, so you can check out the 2012 materials here at this link. The dental insurance session is the only one I can remember, as MIT grad student health insurance (the one we get for free) covers annual eye exam but not dental, which means that you need to get a separate dental plan if you are not on your parents' plan or just pay out of pocket. There are two available for MIT grad students, and both covers dental offices in Cambridge area.
• Fill out financial paperwork at our department, see Heather Barry in room 24-102.
• Fill out the I-9 form at the Student Employment Office in room 11-320 (dometic students need to bring a passport or two identifications, international students need passport + visa + I-20). Later you can set up direct deposit online if you are going to be paid by MIT. You will probably get an email about this from the HR department at MIT.
• Sign up for a gym membership: grad students get MIT gym membership for free, but there is still a short form you need to fill out at the main desk of MIT gym before you can access the gym. They will give you a little red card when you sign up which allows you to check out a towel every time.
• Stop by an MIT library to activate your library account: the process takes like 5 mins.
• Load up your computer.  With MIT certificates, WiFi is free everywhere.  But more importantly the software you'll need is likely to be free.  http://ist.mit.edu/software-hardware
• Consider getting an office if you are a PhD student. This does not need to happen right away as you might not need a place for research yet, but if you have a particular office that you want to be in (e.g., with older grad students from your group), it might be better to request earlier than later.
• Consider transportation options if you live off-campus:
  
  1. Public transportation: MIT offers discounted monthly bus passes ($25/month) and T pass (access busses and subways for $37.5/month): http://web.mit.edu/facilities/transportation/tpass.html There is a MBTA chip in our student ID, so our ID acts just like a MBTA card, so you swipe it to get on any public transportation and can load money onto it through the MIT card office or using their website.
  2. Bringing your own car could be expensive due to parking expenses, so I'd consider ZipCar which has cars located throughout campus. MIT students receive special discount like no application fee, no security deposit and $25 annual fee which I think is a good deal: facilities/transportation/car_sharing.html (consider asking an older grad student for a referal, and you can each get a $25 credit). Also look into relay rides which is a just like ZipCar but you rent out other people's cars.
  3. Biking.  Like any other metropolitan area, bikes are common and offers a slew of advantages and some disadvantages (which for bikers goes without saying).  Some local things to keep in mind.
     1. MIT bike auction.  If you want to cheap, wait till Sept/Oct time frame where there is a bike auction at MIT.  Twice a year, MIT police pick up abandoned bikes and store them for auction–as is.  Most are unrideable, but often simple fixes are all that is needed (like lubrication, or tire repair, or seat replacement).  $10-15 might get you a servicable bike.  A few words of advice:
        1.  Of the dozens of bikes, only few are decent and many will cost more to repair than the cost of the bike.  If you don't know much about servicing or repairing a bike, you might want to bring along a friend who can advise.  
        2. The bikes are all out for display in the lot open for the auction, so you can get an feel for what is going to be sold.  There is no particular order of the auction, so you might have to wait for the bike you are interested in to make it to the podium.
        3. Feeding frenzy starts early.  Most people there do not understand the value of bikes and will throw a lot of money at bikes with little worth.  Some will get a decent bike for a decent price.  Most will be throwing their money away.  Let those with bags of cash, spend themselves out.  You might lose out on your pick, but it probably is for the best.  As time moves on, the number of people wanes substantially as they lose interest of have spent their money.  The MIT police start getting tired too as the number of bids per bike drops.  At the end, they are begging people to bid.  Here are where $10, $15 and $25 might get you something worth fixing.
     2. Locking and Parking.  A sturdy (kryptonite-type) lock is essential.  Bike theft is common in Cambridge.  You'll see that there are far more many bikes than dedicated parking racks (particularly short around our labs/offices).   
     3. Road/Bike paths.  This is the great NorthEast and the winter-beaten roads are a fact of life.  Expect the ride to be rough.  City riding takes additional skills because of the amount of congestion and construction. 
     4. Sidewalks.  Technically, you may ride on the sidewalks as long as you maintain the speed of pedestrians.  You'll see how little this rule is followed.
     5. Winter is coming.  MIT offers indoor storage sites.  See the MIT transportation website for details.
     6. Fix-it stations.  MIT has a number of quick-fix stations all over campus where basic tools and tire pumps are kept on cables.  
     7. MIT GSC Sustainability usually has a Bike Fest during orientation so check that out for learning about bikes and biking around MIT and the city.
     8. Hubway.  MIT also offers a discount to a local (Boston/Cambridge/Somerville) bike sharing service called Hubway (thehubway.com).  The cost to MIT students is $25 for a year.  
  4. Other ride-sharing programs listed on MIT's site: facilities/transportation/index.html
• Be happy!   (to that end, check out the free and discounted page in this wiki)

Additional Items for International Students:

• Report to the International Student Office (ISO) at MIT right away: iso/
• Complete the mandatory English test required by MIT (2015 date: Tuesday, September 1, 2015 at 9:00 am in Room 10-250): MIT makes all the international students take this listening + oral exams before your first semester starts. If you have spent any time in the States it is very easy. If not, you might want to ask one of the recent international students for their experience. I recall they tested some American slangs. If you fail this exam, you have to sign up for some ESL classes which I heard are not very interesting and you probably don't want to waste time on that if you can avoid it. link
• Complete a mandatory immigration orientation with ISO. The sessions are held daily till registration day.
• Get a bank account ASAP: Bank of America is probably the largest bank you can find in the area (Chase does not have any location near Boston unfortunately). You will probably not get a credit card until you have a SSN, so just get the plain checking and saving accounts so that you can pay rent and get paid by MIT. The other option is the MIT credit union, but I have never used it so I cannot comment.
• Get a cell phone plan (optional): cellphone plans through major carriers like ATT and Verizon has been really expensive lately (roughtly $50/month/person?) so I got a google number and use SIP calls on campus where there is Wifi (you can call and text for free as long as there is wifi), and uses a service provider called Ting for data when there is no wifi. Though this requires some work to set-up so depends on how much work you want to go through. If you go with one of the major cellphon service carrier, make sure to checkout MIT's discount program here
• Get a Social Security Number (SSN) if you are employed (I think that means you have a RA or TA?): double check with the international student office on how this works...
• Get on your country's student organization's emailing lists (optional): sometime it could be beneficial to be on your country's specific MIT email lists for getting help and info specific to your nationality. For Chinese students, I think you are automatically on chn-all@mit.edu, and might need to sign up for chn-open@mit.edu( though this one has lots of spam so you might want to unsubscribe after a while).