Summarization of Information for Indian Students Coming to RIT in Fall

Before we proceed, here are some important websites that you might obtain information from:

A) Rustic Village Apartments
B) RIT Housing Website
C) RIT On-Campus Housing Room-mate Available/Wanted List
D) RIT INN
E) RIT Shuttle Services

0. The Quarter System:
In my opinion as a senior undergrad at RIT, I feel the quarter systems are more strenuous and difficult than the semester systems. From my understanding semester systems in most colleges last for like 15-16 weeks, where as quarter systems last for only 10 weeks (11 weeks if you include the finals week). Now, the colleges which follow semester system, they have 2 semesters per year (with short winter and summer terms), where as colleges like RIT which follow the quarter system have typically 3 quarters (Fall, Winter and Spring) along with an extra Summer quarter.

So the point is, where other students learn a particular course for 15 weeks, we guys go through the same topic within 10 weeks. That doesn't necessarily mean less materials are covered or there are any less tests. In fact in RIT, professors love to go beyond what they teach in other average colleges and there is practically some kind of exam, quiz, project or home work due every week. So its definitely more stressful during the quarter system where you don't even get a break or have time to relax or catch up. Basically the only way to survive the quarter system is through a lot of planning, a lot of hard work, a lot of stamina and also a lot of patience.

However the advantage of being in a quarter system is (which I believe is an advantage), is the co-ops or internships. With 4 quarters available to us, we as students, can easily choose any two quarters for our double block co-op for 6 months. Or, we can do one co-op for one quarter, come back to school for the next quarter, and then again go for another co-op the following quarter. This flexibility is only possible because of the quarter system, as for students in semester system, they do not have the option of working full time or doing any internship for less than 6 months and then come back to school and pick up with their classes.

Hope this helps.

1. Cost of living:
Cost of living and other expenses depend on a lot of factors such as:
a) Food
b) Books
c) Laptop
d) Cell phone bill (including calling cards to India)
e) Clothes (if you are planning to purchase some)
f) Internet bill (if you plan to use internet at Riverknoll or off-campus apartment)
g) Transportation (Bus trips – if you are staying off-campus, or buying a car)
h) Electricity bill (if you are staying off-campus)
i) Miscellaneous

a) Food
Food will cost you from anywhere between $200 to $400 per month if you plan to be very economical. Food is something that can fluctuate depending on your eating habits. Eating out would cost you a minimum 8 to 12 bucks each time, while cooking would save you a lot of money. I included breakfast, lunch, dinner and other snacks into food costs. Again, it will largely depend on your own individual eating habits and eating style (whether you are vegetarian, or eat non-veg, etc). But, $300/month would be a good bench-mark for food expenses.

b) Books
The cost of books varies from course to course and also where you buy it. Usually books at on-campus apartments are very expensive and it’s usually cheaper to buy it from other stores or websites like half.com or ebay.com or amazon.com. But books bought from those websites also come with a shipping charge, which when included more or less cancel out their difference between the cost of buying the same book from Campus Connections. Some books are even available in India (if you check the ISBN) and you can buy those from India before coming here.

c) Laptop
Pretty much every technology student at RIT would eventually end up buying a laptop. It depends on when you actually want to buy it, where you want to buy it and what kind of laptop you want to buy.

As for when to buy, well RIT’s technology students DO need a computer like a fish needs water to survive. But if you eventually plan to buy a laptop, and if you have a lot of patience, you can wait till late November for Thanksgiving, when laptop prices go down. Also, during the first few weeks of Fall, there would be another sale for “Going back to school Sale”. So if you can get a deal, go for it.

An average laptop costs anything between $700 to $1000. I made this observation from my own experience, where my first laptop cost me 1300 bucks and my second laptop was just 800 bucks. Both were more or less average Windows laptop. But if you are a Linux fan, you can go for a cheaper Linux laptop being sold by Dell. These laptops would be cheaper. Also don't forget to consider cheaper Dell Refurbished Laptops.

If you are a fancy Apple guy, then you can buy laptops from the Campus Connections where you might get a student discount on specific Apple products.

d) Cell phone bill (including calling cards to India)
Cell phone bill depends on the carrier you have. There are 4 basic cell phone carriers – i) Cingular, ii) Verizon iii) Sprint and iv) T-Mobile. As far as I know, T-Mobile provides the cheapest service (about $20 bucks per month) but has the crappiest signal strength.
Cingular and Verizon are more widely used services here that have plans which cost around $40-50 bucks per month. Cell phone handset is included with the contract. I would suggest you to go to their individual websites to make your own final decision.

There are numerous “Call India” calling card websites online. Those websites provide different pay-per-talk plans. An average $10 calling card would provide you approximately 2 hours of talk time.

From last year freshers' experience, I learnt that AT&T (Cingular) usually offers cell phones to new international students from India when they arrive here. The thing is, when you apply for a new cell phone, they are gonna need your ID (Driver's License is a must), Passport and a credit card. A new international student might not have a Driver's License or a credit card. So, its difficult for that person to get a cell phone. However, you have a relative or a friend you can trust, they have the option of "choosing another line" and getting you a cell phone. But, in some rare cases like some students told me last year, AT&T and T-Mobile were issuing new cell phones and cell service contracts to the international students who don't have any driver's license or credit card. You may wanna dig out more details about this, as much of the facts mentioned here might be incorrect.

e) Clothing
For winter, I would suggest you to buy your clothing from here. Primary winter clothing includes sweat shirts, jackets and gloves. The sweatshirts cost anywhere between 20 bucks to 45 bucks (if you want the expensive but good looking one) and the same stands for jackets. Gloves would cost you around 5 to 15 bucks depending on quality. You might also need a thick sole boot for snowy winter, so that you don’t slip while walking. Sales go on mostly all the time here in Rochester or any where in US, so during those sales, you can find decent sweat shirts or jackets or anything that you might wanna need.

f) Internet bill
If you live on-campus anywhere except at Riverknoll then you don’t have to worry about monthly internet bill. But if you plan to live at Riverknoll then you have to pay a monthly bill of approximately $45. That’s the monthly bill for old accounts. For those who plan to create a new account, it would be around $30 bucks for first year only. Now you can split up the bill depending on how many room-mates you have. Also at Riverknoll, you get a yearly refund of $200 bucks from RIT for RoadRunner (Internet service provider).

g) Transportation (and car expenses)
If you plan to buy a car, a used car would cost you anywhere between $1500 (poorest quality) to $25,000 (best quality). New cars usually start from $15000, depending on the make and model. But after buying a car, the costs don’t end up there. You need a valid driver’s license to buy a car. Also you need to insure your car. Insurance and other maintenance cost are usually a lot and depend mostly on the car itself.

If you plan to use the bus transportation, there are two kinds of bus services here. 1) RTS and 2) RIT Shuttle. RIT shuttle is free of cost and provides you transportation all over on-campus and also to the mall, racquet club, RIT Inn, etc. RTS is the public transportation service which provides service from RIT to Rustic Village. It charges $1.75 for each trip.

h) Electricity
If you live on-campus then you don’t have to worry about electricity. But if you live off-campus then you probably might have to. Since I live on-campus, I can’t help you regarding the cost of electricity in off-campus housing.

i) Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous other costs include like going out, or eating out, or other hidden costs. That mainly depends on each individual and could be from a mere $50 bucks to even $200 bucks.

2) Pre-requisites
My experiences with pre-reqs tell me that these are hard to avoid courses. Some pre-reqs are pretty easy but there are indeed some courses which are very difficult. These are some courses you can’t avoid by coming here early or talking to the professor. The professor can waive those pre-reqs if you do well in one of the “course waiver” exams, but if the particular course is tough, it’s difficult to do well in the particular exam.

My suggestion for you is to take each pre-req as a required course for your graduation and complete them as soon as possible. Everyone in RIT had to take some kind of pre-req, so the concept of having to take them is nothing new or abnormal.

However, my primary recommendation is to talk to your academic adviser and your professor regarding this because they know about this topic more than I do.

3) On-Campus Jobs
There are tons of on-campus jobs starting from many different cafeterias to TA and RA positions. For RA or TA position, you have to know your professor really well. However, RA or TA jobs are not really guaranteed, however, not impossible to get at the same time. Alternatively, you can apply for any of those "Labbie" positions as a "Lab Assistant" in many of those computer labs on campus.

4) Co-Ops
RIT has plenty of job opportunities for internships and full time positions. We have career fairs in Fall and Spring quarter when about 150 to 200 companies come to hire students for co-ops and full time positions. These companies include Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Boeing, etc etc. These companies look for students who have a decent GPA and have matching experience. So this means, the probability of getting a co-op in the fall quarter for someone in his/her first quarter is very less. After taking more courses, getting more experience and earning a good GPA you can always apply for co-ops or full time jobs. Again, getting a job really depends on each individual, regarding how good he/she is regarding a particular skill set, and how much experience he/she has or how good his/her GPA is. Nothing is purely black and white regarding the whole co-op or full time job situation. Chances are better for Masters International students than Undergraduate International students, but situations can vary from one individual to another.

The co-op wages vary from one company to another and it also depends on the experience of an individual student as well as the job position itself. It can be as little as $10 per hour to even up to $32 per hour at big companies.

5) Indian Associations at RIT
We do have certain Indian and other international associations at RIT. The most common and popular one is OASIS (website).

6) Temporary Housing
I know many students have been assigned for temporary housing at RIT Inn. What they need to realize that there are a lot of students applying to few number of on-campus apartments. Some people get lucky and some others have to adjust. In any manner, getting an apartment in Rustic Village should be one of the options. RIT Inn is very expensive.

For students who are willing to come here early, before the move in day, they MIGHT face situations regarding temporary housing before the move-in day. Temporary housing at RIT before the move-in day would be around $25-$30 PER DAY. Now, that's kinda expensive if you come here like 1 month early. So make sure you make your arrangements with someone staying off-campus or something. However, there are plenty of Indian students living in Rustic, so, if you know anyone in Rustic, then you can move in early and stay at their place, only if they are willing. So you have to make your own prior arrangements before moving here.

NASA - Methane Blast

NASA testing a new methane engine.


Source - http://science.nasa.gov

Quick Firefox Tip: Single-key search tool


LifeHacker's Rick Broida writes:

"Reader Grant wrote to tell us about Firefox's little-known Quick Find search tool, which you access by pressing the forward slash key (the one that shares space with the question mark).

When you press slash (or the apostrophe key), you'll see a little Quick Find field in the lower-left corner of the screen--not unlike what you get from pressing Ctrl-F (but without any of the Find controls). Start typing and you'll see instant results. Wait a moment and Quick Find disappears on its own.

Obviously this won't work if you've placed your cursor in a text field (you'll just get the slash or apostrophe), and I'm not sure there's any major value in using this search method instead over Ctrl-F. That said, it's one less keystroke, so it does seem a little faster. Just one more way to wring a little more value out of Firefox."

(Source: lifehacker.com)

Amazing Video of the Sun

Scientists Spot 'Tsunami' on the Sun

A major flare on the Sun earlier this week generated what scientists are calling a solar tsunami.

The tsunami-like shock wave, formally called a Moreton wave, rolled across the hot surface, destroying two visible filaments of cool gas on opposite sides of the visible face of the Sun.

Astronomers using a prototype of a new solar telescope in New Mexico recorded the action.

"These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful," said K. S. Balasubramaniam of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Sunspot, NM, "They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material."

It is unusual to see such an event from a ground-based observatory, Balasubramaniam said. And it was also unusual that it occurred near solar minimum, when the Sun is at its least active during an 11-year cycle.

But solar activity can come at any time. Flares like this one are spawned by sunspots, which are dark, cool regions that cap magnetic activity below. When the caps pop, colossal doses of superheated matter and radiation are unleashed.

Sunspot 929 began kicking up flares Tuesday, when a major X-9 event was detected by a space-based observatory.

When another flare erupted Wednesday, the NSO's Optical Solar Patrol Network (OSPAN) was watching.

A shock wave propagated like the splash from a rock thrown into a pond. This was seen as a brightening from compressed and heated hydrogen gas. Astronomers enhanced the contrast of the images to bring out the detail, and they created an animation of the event.

Later, the shock wave swept across two dark filaments widely seprated on the solar surface, and they disappeared for a few minutes. Scientists are unsure whether the filaments were blown off or were compressed so they were temporarily invisible, according to an NSO statement.

Forecasters say there is a 40 percent chance of more major flares through this weekend. Skywatchers in Alaska, Canada and the very northernmost United States should be on the lookout for colorful Northern Lights generated by the space storminess.

Source: Space.com

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

A really cool video about the most important image ever taken by humanity.

Space Station Golf Shot



International Space Station flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin became the world's third space golf as he took swing with a six iron at the start of a scheduled six- hour spacewalk. For details and more info, please visit this source.