Introduction

Hi guys! I landed in the states to pursue an MS degree in Computer Science on August the 5th. I got admitted to University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which is where I am right now. Over the next (at least) the next two years, I will document each day so that it will serve as a guide to people to work out the small things about life here, like activating the Wi-Fi. I will write a brief summary about what happened over the last 17 days. And from there on, it will read like a journal.

Landing in the states

The first thing that happened upon landing was that we were given immigration forms, asking the monetary total of all the things that I had brought. For future reference, nothing needs to be filled there. As we waited in the queue for immigration, almost all students and all of us pretty jittery, we were ushered to different slots by the officer standing there. The immigration interview actually went quite well. Most of the officers are quite polite, even jolly. Once that was done we walked out and booked a super shuttle. It took us nearly an hour to get to our place.

Dispersing to different locations

On reaching the street address, we all dispersed to where we were temping. 'Temping' means staying temporarily at a senior's place. That term is used very commonly here. We hauled our bags to different street addresses and started temping. Most of us slept that day due to jetlag, which was a very bad idea, since we woke up in the middle of the night, extremely sleepless and extremely hungry. Once that cycle is spoiled it takes more time than usual to adjust to the new time zone.

Familiarizing yourself with the university

The very next day, we hopped on the university shuttle and went to the campus (Most universities will have a pretty sophisticated shuttle service, find out about yours). It was breathtaking, as most of them are. We actually got quite a lot done that day, which was uncharacteristic considering how sleepy we all were. Here's a gist of what we did:

• We went and registered with the campus coordinator and told them we had arrived
• Got the student ID cards. It is normally a 5 minute process. They check your passport, take a photo and print the card right there
• Opened a bank account in the university's local bank, which is PNC for us. Yours might be different. Again, a 5 minute process. Although, the debit card arrives a week later

Setting up the housing 

Every locality where you will live or want to live will have a regional office where you need to register to get an apartment. Usually registration happens a month before you fly to the states. Anyway, we did ours and made sure we got the house on time. Once we moved in, It was a hailstorm of chores: unpacking, shopping for essentials, deciding accommodation ground rules, etc. One important thing: we take a lot of objects for granted but they are absolutely necessary. A dustbin for example. Other than that the apartments generally come equipped with gas, electricity, A/C, and a telephone line.

Setting up the Wi-Fi

This is probably the most important thing that needs to be done. Please note that the telephone line does not mean an active Wi-Fi connection. It is only a wire. Literally. We purchased a modem and a router in Walmart. There are also models that have both, so you don't need to buy them separately. The plan has to be activated either over the Internet or the phone. So we called the Comcast office (because the default telephone line was Comcast) and set up a neat plan ($65 per month; unlimited data; 75 MBPS speed). Then we came home and connected the router and the modem, and we were good to go. We had a slight hitch, however. The guy on the phone said he couldn't activate till our TV connection also became active. So we told him to generate an account number for us and went ahead and activated it online anyway.

This is it for today folks! Stay tuned for future posts.