Alex's tiny tips

Hi CfA predocs, and future predocs,

I've come to the CfA on a 6 month research visit from the UK, and was pretty quickly welcomed into a warm community of predocs.

I'll put some stuff into this post that is not covered on the Fellowship Program Resources page (I'm putting a link here because it is a bit awkward to get to from the main CfA page).

The following are based on my own experience. Some items are a heads up for predocs from the UK, though you might find it useful too if you're coming from elsewhere.

Visa

• Consider applying for a visa interview at the Belfast Consulate rather than the London embassy. It's much faster and smoother. Make sure you have an alternative photo-ID to travel by plane if you need to, as you have to submit your passport.
• If you're staying for not more than 6 months go for the J1-short term scholar visa, rather than the J1-research scholar visa. The latter might get you into all sorts of trouble if you want to apply for a second J1-research visa, e.g. later when applying for postdoc positions.
• To find out more about the implications of each visa (sub)category,
  
• look at the London embassy webpage, which is pretty good, but a bit of a labyrinth of hyperlinks
  
• look into the webpages of universities in the US. They are most up to date regarding the recent changes in visa regulations, especially concerning the new regulations of the J1 research scholar visa with respect to re-entry and second-time applications.
• be careful with the US government webpages; they tend to be out of date.

Accommodation

• Why not ask on this Blog if someone knows of a room opening up.
  
• Otherwise, Craig's List is a good place to look for accommodation.

And once you're in Cambridge,

• Keep using Craig's List for everything!
• Get a paper map for 25 cents of Boston & Cambridge from the little kiosk on Harvard Square and carry it with you at all times.
• Get a bicycle. Unlike the UK,
• it's less hilly here
• distances are greater on maps than they look
• Go Salsa-dancing at MIT!

If you are Japanese (or half, like me) you might be interested in

• Kotobukiya in Porter Exchange
• seatoyouboston at the Boston Fish peer for fresh sushi grade fish
• IACE travel agents for flights to Japan (Thanks to Takako for this tip!)
  

Though I know it's not good practice to edit posts, I'll occasionally add some points to the above when they occur to me. This may be as a result of questions and comments to this post, which you are very welcome to post below!

Cheers!