Info:welcome emails

Summer 2015 Emails

Housing

Hello Incoming CSE Graduate Student!

Welcome to the University of Michigan! We (the student organization for grad students in CSE) are glad you chose to join us in Ann Arbor. To make the transition into the grad program as smooth as possible, we want to provide you with some helpful information about the program, about the department, and about Ann Arbor. Roughly, we plan to send an email once a month covering topics that will be useful to you as an incoming graduate student.

First, you should join the Facebook group for incoming grad students: https://www.facebook.com/groups/237539559779778/ This group is for both incoming and existing students, so it should be a good place to ask any questions that you have.

Housing

An important first concern is where you are going to live in Ann Arbor next year. If you are seeing this email, and do not currently have a place to live for 2015-2016, you should start looking immediately. Ann Arbor is a college town, and most of the rentals revolve around the academic school year. As such, many leases are signed in October for the following September.

Ann Arbor has several main neighborhoods where grad students and undergrads live. We will highlight each by general location, methods to get to the CSE building, and neighborhood style.

• North Campus. Generally the area around the University's North Campus and Plymouth road. Accessible to campus by walking and Ann Arbor bus. Usually a cheaper area to live in, and desirable because it is easy to get to campus. Pretty dead after 10pm, and a little inconveinent to get to (or maybe more importantly to get home from...) restaurants and bars downtown. North campus also includes Northwood, which is run by the university and convenient to rent, but generally not regarded as a great place to live.

• Old 4th Ward and Kerrytown. Box formed by Glen, Huron, and Main streets, and the river to the north. Accessible to campus by Michigan blue bus and Ann Arbor bus. Nice neighborhoods, but not cheap. Think $900+/month for a single, $700+/month/person for a two bedroom. Quiet, easy walk to downtown, and not terribly hard to get to CSE. May be a little tricky to find a place this late in the rental cycle, but bedrooms in houses are often available.

• Downtown. William, Liberty, Washington, 5th, 4th, and Main St. area. Ann Arbor bus or drive to campus. Probably the most expensive area in Ann Arbor, roughly $1200+/bedroom/month (but there are cheaper places if you can find them). Best for food and nightlife.

• Geddes. Area just south of Nichols Arboretum. Michigan blue bus or drive to campus. Nice place to live, but more populated with undergrads so likely to be a little louder. Not a far walk to the main central campus bus stop. Pretty easy to get downtown (Ann Arbor isn't that big).

• South. South of South University street. Michigan blue bus or drive to campus. Generally where undergrads live, although the residents tend to get older as you go south (away from campus). Can be tricky to find a nice place to live, as many of the houses are clearly undergrad houses.

• Rest of Ann Arbor. Basically you have to drive to campus. Cheaper and more options, but not great for student life. Not highly recommended, but grad students do live outside of the above areas.

• Ypsilanti. Drive. Cheaper yet, but nobody wants to drive out there, particularly in the winter.

Most grad students do have a car, which is useful for getting groceries, getting to the airport, getting to Detroit or other areas around Ann Arbor, getting to campus when you are late for a meeting.

To help, here are a couple websites that people have had luck with when finding a place to live in Ann Arbor:

• https://offcampushousing.umich.edu/
• http://www.padmapper.com/?lat=42.28749592171208&lng=-83.70435200000003
• https://www.cribspot.com/search/umich/rentals?e=-83.6824&n=42.3211&s=42.2313&w=-83.8038
• http://www.johnwcooper.com/annarbor/offcampushousing-universityofmichigan.htm

Hopefully this will help you get started. If you have any questions we encourage you to post on the Facebook group so as many people as possible can see it and can answer. These emails will also be posted to our wiki (https://wiki.eecs.umich.edu/cseg/index.php/Main_Page) so they can be referenced there. Stay tuned for another email next month about taking classes as a graduate student.

Go Blue!

- Brad / CSEG