FAQ for URCS Incoming and New Students

Before the starting of your UR-life...

1. What are the important info channels?

This FAQ.
Incoming student committee: Madhur Ambastha (ambastha@cs.rochester.edu), Virendra J. Marathe (vmarathe@cs.rochester.edu), Xipeng Shen (xshen@cs.rochester.edu)
Details link http://www.cs.rochester.edu/~xshen/service/newstudents/
Chinese student mailing list--CSSAUR: To subscribe or unsubscribe, email majordomo@cc.rochester.edu, with body "subscribe cssaur" or "unsubscribe cssaur".
Indian student mailing list: ur_indians@yahoogroups.com

2. How to find a place to live?

On campus:
    * apply officially, see http://www.reslife.rochester.edu/graduate/apply.php. The early the better.
    * use mailing list, E.g. post messages on CSSAUR.
Off campus:
    * http://ochousing.reslife.rochester.edu/
    * http://rentrochester.com/
     NOTE: some places around UofR are not safe. Please feel free to ask us for the related information.

3. What should you learn if you have spare time?

Unix-based Operating Systems are a norm in US academia. We mostly have Linux boxes at URCS. You may want to have some basic knowledge about Linux/Unix and basic softwares (e.g. Emacs, Latex.) if you've never worked on Unix systems.

4. How can you reach UofR smoothly?

Incoming student committee provides pick-up service (free! :)).  Please contact us early if you want a pick-up from the airport.
In the case that you want to take a cab, the price to campus should be about $10.

5. What to bring?

Click here for the lists.


At the beginning of your UR-life...

1. Why am I here?

    Sorry, can't help you on this one. Consult your local Zen practitioner ;).

2. What is the campus map?

    River campus map:
    http://www.rochester.edu/news/river.html
    Whole map:
    http://www.rochester.edu/news/map.html

3. Where to eat on campus?

    Dinning-room: in Frederick Douglass Bldg. (building #40)
    Cafeteria: there are two in Medical Center ground floor. (see map http://www.rochester.edu/news/map.html)
                   one in Wilson Commons (building #39)
                   one in Frederick Douglass Bldg. (building #40)
    Vendor machines: ground floor in Hylan Bldg. Building (building #19)

4. Where and how to do shopping?

If you are a shopping freak living in the vicinity of U of R, Marketplace Mall is the place for you to visit regularly. This is the largest mall nearby where you can find stores offering a variety of items of everyday use starting from winter clothing (which will be the main concern for foreign students) to electronic goods (like digital cameras, chargers, mp3 players, etc.) to groceries (in Wegmans) to any kind of household items (in Chase Pitkin, Walmart, etc.). Although this place is around 4-5 miles from the U of R campus, the good news is that there are buses from the U of R campus to Marketplace Mall every Wednesday and Saturday.

The bus schedule is available online here: http://www.rochester.edu/parking/urspecial.htm.

For a grad student, typically weekend is the only free time (if at all possible) for such endeavors. U of R does provide with excellent commuting facilities within the campus, and some commuting facilities are also made available by the Rochester Genesse Regional Transport Service. In fact, there are regular buses to downtown Rochester, the Marketplace Mall, etc. passing through or by the U of R campus.

5. How to settle in my apartment?

As soon as you arrive at your apartment for the first time, it normally seems to be a very large place for a humble soul like you. That is because your apartment is EMPTY (if it isn't one of the furnished ones)! YOU have to furnish it! Typically, all the students that have graduated and are moving out have what we call a "moving sale". Furniture items, kitchen tools, etc. are sold at dead cheap rates. Some movers dont even bother to sell off their stuff, they just dump it at the nearby dumpster. You can always pick stuff up from there. Although it might seem to be unacceptable to your esteem, hey it is good furniture stuff that you need at your apartment! If you dont pick it up, someone else will! And moreover, its for FREE!

6. How to go to school?

Well, we have an excellent university bus service which is absolutely free for students! Bus number 70 connects all the grad housing areas - I use it to commute from my Whipple Park apartment to the department and back. And the bus does run even at unearthly hours, keeping in mind the habits of the average grad student. Bus 72 connects the River campus to the Eastman Living Center. The schedules of these two buses (which are free for UR students) and other bus schedules of the Rochester Regional Transportation service can be found at : http://www.rgrta.org/ .

7. Where to get movies?   

If you are the one interested in motion picture entertainment U of R has it for you! The Multimedia Center at Rush Rhees Library (building #1) has a superfluous stock of english movies of all kinds, even the fairly recent releases. The stock of foreign movies is somewhat limited though. The Multimedia Center also has a huge collection of art, literature, etc. documentaries. For more information about the Multimedia Center click here. Movies 10 is a second-line cinema with very cheap tickets. It's movies are usually a couple of months old.

8. What sports are available? Where to play?

Are you a sports junky? U of R provides fantastic support for sports activities to U of R students. The Robert B. Goergen Center is a huge sports complex in the U of R campus that contains facilities for almost every well known sport. Starting from a well-equipped gymnasium to running tracks to swimming pools to the basketball courts to a football stadium to badminton courts etc. These facilities are free for all U of R students.

Inside our department, we have basketball, volleyball, badminton, cricket and other clubs. Please feel free to ask us for related information.

9. How to start banking?

HSBC (formerly Marine Midland) student account, on campus ATM, low savings interest rate. Free on-line payment. Their closest office is on Mt Hope, near Goler House.  Chase Manhattan no real student account (last we checked) so the minimum amount necessary to avoid fees is rather high. They have an office and an ATM on campus. They also have an office in the Med Center. M&T They have ATMs and branches in many Tops grocery stores, as well as a branch on Mt Hope near campus.

You should of course call up the banks and get details on what they offer in terms of student accounts. The things to watch for are: do they have a minimum deposit requirement in the accounts, what are the interest rates, do they charge you for more than a certain number of transfers between your accounts, how accessible are they on campus and outside Rochester, whether they can quickly give you an ATM card or a bank debit card etc. Note there are other banks (just look in the phone book!) and there is also a credit union near us on West Henrietta Rd.

10. How to get used to the computers here?

See here for advice, including information on computing environment in our department.

11. Where are the printers and how to print?

See URCS lab document for information on the labs and systems in the UR Computer Science Department.

12. How to start your career as a CS Grad student?

See here for advice.

13. Need a car?

After you have stayed in the United States for some time, you will realize that having a car at your disposal renders a considerable amount of flexibility to your life here. If you are an out-going person, you will feel the need of a car. But owning a car in the United States is not a big deal. In fact, we grad students can also afford cars! A grad student normally goes for the purchase of a used car. A fairly good used car can be bought in less than a couple of thousand bucks! And this much money is typically saved over the duration of just one semester. Used car sale advertisements are normally put up at the bulletin boards in the grad housing premises. Almost all the professional car dealers also sell used cars.

14. Which College is for my spouse?

If you are married, and your spouse intends to study as well, she or he has several options here at Rochester. Your spouse may either join you at U of R or enroll in another college nearby. Rochester Institute of Technology is another big institute here where grad education is also available. There are also other colleges like the Monroe Community College, Nazareth College, etc. nearby.

15. Want to learn more about Rochester?

16. Special questions for Chinese Students.

    Click here to see how to use (e.g. display, input, print, programming) chinese in department's computers. (Thanks to HuBo's great work!)

17. Special questions for Indian Students -> I really love the XYZ tamarind sauce that I get in my local store in India. Would I get a good substitute here? What all should I bring from India?

    Well, there is a list of items that would be useful to bring here. The list has been pinched from Arun Kumar's homepage at cs.jhu.edu . Many items here are an overkill, therefore take this list with a pinch of salt.


Last Changed by Madhur Ambastha, Virendra J. Marathe, Xipeng Shen     2004-04-10