Planning for graduate school: part one

After exhaustive googling, it has come to my attention that the world is severely lacking in a comprehensive list of things one will need (and need to do) when moving into a new apartment during graduate school. It's not quite the same as undergraduate, and it's not quite uprooting yourself for a new job. You still have the connections of the university community, and sometimes even the housing is technically part of the university (like mine, at least for now). You also know that there is a finite time (five-sixish years) that you will be spending in this new place. It's enough time to buy quality kitchenware, yet not necessarily enough to buy out Ikea. Anyway, this upcoming year, I will be living in a two bedroom apartment in Ashdown in Cambridge.

http://web.mit.edu/housing/grad/ashdown.html




It is new construction, so the rooms should be pretty nice! The building is also applying for LEED Gold Certification, which is a HUGE thing in terms of sustainability. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it is a program which certifies a building based on their reduction of environmental impact during the planning and construction process. This includes rainwater reclamation for irrigation, water efficiency via low usage shower heads, toilets, and appliances, high recycled content of materials, recycling during construction/construction waste management (more than 90%), and utilizing natural lighting in their design. As MIT has clearly done their part, I want to continue their efforts this upcoming year (while of course trying to keep costs down).

My roommate is a young lady from China who is in the Sloan School of Management in the entrepreneurship track. I'm really excited to meet her!

During my search, I did find the following helpful websites:

http://myfirstapartment.com/

http://www.walkscore.com/walking-matters.shtml (to figure out how walkable your neighborhood is and where the nearest restaurants, pharmacies, etc…are located)

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/Bts01_LifeFirstApartmentChecklist1.asp

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/Bts01_LifeFirstApartmentChecklist2.asp

Even so, I think that the situation merits some planning, and I will be posting such thoughts here to hopefully help some of my friends planning to the same thing within the next few years.

Oh: my new address will be

EDIT: contact me if you want my address.

However, the building is NOT finished yet and will not accept mail until about September 1st…so DO NOT send anything yet or it will end up in some sort of construction-vortex-limbo.