About Taxes

This is a very brief post that I hope will help future predocs not to have a heart attack after their first year living in Boston. If your country doesn't have any special tax treaty with the US, be ready to pay a lot of money in taxes. The details of how to fill the forms are beyond the scope of this post, but at least I will give some rough numbers in case you get a stipend of ~ 2K dollars per month:

state tax: more than US$1000 per year.

federal tax: more than US$3000 per year.

SAO will discount the federal tax from your paycheck during the first year, but afterward is your responsability to do the payments. The state tax payments depend on you from the begining.

Now that you know the cruel truth, be sure to save enough money!!


all the best,

Jose

Harvard online music library

This was a huge discovery , at least for me!

with your SAO ID number (the one in your card) and your harvard PIN, you have accesses to a vast collection of streaming music. I don't know exactly how many hour of music are available, but I'm sure you will never run out of it, it's just so much. If you like jazz, blues and classical music, this is certainly the place to go:

Online Resources for Music Scholars

enjoy!

Predoc with a family

I've tried to gather all the important points here concerning Life and Everything as a predoc with a family at the CfA and in Boston metropolitan area (Boston metro for short). Note: for your wife/husband/spouse/fiancee/partner/etc. (not being disrespectful to any of these or a combination if one so likes...) I will now on refer to as a 'partner'.

Before going on, I should tell you that it's going to be tough. And I really mean it! Also it's going to test your relationship and your nerves. Before deciding to come to CfA, you should definitely talk with your partner about it. It's altogether different thing being in a strange place with no relatives and friends (at least for a start) and basically it means your partner will be home with kids all along, which might be a problem to some. As for you, dear predoc to be, you will be working hard at the CfA and at home, so be prepared to have near infinite energy resources in hand. However, it's also going to be very rewarding and certainly a memorable experience. But let me say it again, talk with and listen to your partner how s/he feels and thinks about this. With this foreword let me turn to the most important thing:

Money

The bottom line is, the stipend is not enough. And you will be paying taxes (currently 14% + state taxes 5%) for it, including taxes for your health insurance, if your country doesn't have some special agreement with the US. You'll probably need at least hundred bucks extra per month, so having some savings, another stipend etc. is almost essential requirement. Smithsonian Institution (SI) won't pay the flight tickets for your family but there might be ways around it. Ask your advisor/coordinator about it. However, be prepared to pay them at least for the time being. Also, if you're coming just for a year, it's financially better to make it less than year, e.g. two weeks is enough (hint: ask your coordinator about business expenses). If you're going to be longer, at some point you will be considered as a US citizen for tax purposes (for a starters you're considered as a [your nationality here] citizen for tax purposes), which means that if you don't make enough money (and with the stipend you certainly won't) you're considered as a 'poor' person and you don't have to pay taxes and your kids will probably get free Christmas presents from the rich people that are feeling guilty for having too much money.

Apartment

Overall, Cambridge is a pretty expensive place to live. With a family you're looking a slightly bigger place than a room and the rents for a 1-BR apartments start at $1000/month + utilities (this depending also at a time of the year, August-September being the most expensive since a lot of students are coming to town at this time). It's a whole lot more better if you can come beforehand to look for the place before your family arrives. I would say two-three weeks is good enough, but if you count yourself extremely lucky you can do it in one week. You can stay that time in a hotel, which should be reimbursed by the SAO as a moving expense or I've heard that Harvard is also starting to allow SAO predocs to use their short-term apartments (this needs to be confirmed). Also, there's a whole bunch of friendly predocs that will provide you a roof over your head if there is a need for that. The utilities mentioned above can vary from place to place. Usually they're heat, gas, water and electricity and they will add another 100-200 bucks to your rent, again depending at the time of the year. At the beginning of your lease, you need to provide the landlord 1-2 months rent as a guarantee and SAO will give you 10% of your overall stipend for this, but again it might not be enough. If you use some company to find an apartment for you add another month's rent to the bill. So, it might not be a bad idea to have some savings with you. The phone/internet plans are pretty expensive (this of course for a person coming from Finland) and they start at 60-100$/month.

What comes to the location, I would say stay upriver. Overall, the area of Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Somerville, Watertown etc. is really quiet and peaceful and there is a lot of families in these 'towns' (practically they're neighborhoods or boroughs of Boston). If you decide not to have a car, then I would suggest that find a place near the red line subway, if possible. There are also a lot of buses, but some of them have stairs in them, so it can be difficult to use them with a stroller. The Boston metro area have pretty good public transportation system (at least compared to the standards in the US) and you can survive without a car as well. At least I have. The place to find the apartment is definitely Craigslist. You can find there the best deals by far.

Finding furniture is the least of your troubles. You just find out what is the trash day in your area and the night before, lo and behold, there's lots of good stuff available just for you to pick. There's also a lot of yard sales (people selling stuff in their yards) around, especially in fall where you can find bargains of your life. Craigslist is also a really good place to look, as always. For the bigger stuff you probably need a van and a U-Haul is really the firm you want. They rent vans really cheaply. Of course there's a lot of real furniture stores available and even IKEA, but I would say there's no need for them and you can save some cash for other things.

Just a quick mention of leases. In the US, you have to sign a lease before renting an apartment. The lease is about 20-30 pages long document of this and that about your rights and responsibilities as a tenant and landlord's responsibilities as well. Usually the leases are first for a year and it may be really difficult to terminate the lease during this time. After the year the lease continues on monthly basis, but there are exceptions to this, as always.

The Cost of Living

The overall cost of groceries is somewhat cheaper or the same than in the western Europe. You can go relatively cheap in the summer using Farmer's markets where local producers come and sell their goods. There's a lot of these market places around during the season and probably the best is located in Haymarket, Boston, near the tourist trap Quincy Market. What comes to the grocery stores, Market Basket (located in Somerville) is the cheapest and Whole Foods the most expensive (and quality goes vice versa). The cheapest wine can be found from Trader Joe's as well as downright American snack food.

The kids clothes are relatively cheap in the US. There are a lot of huge department stores where you can find tons of (albeit usually different hues of blue and pink) children clothing, e.g. Wal-Mart, Babies 'R Us, Children 'R Us, TJMaxx, GAP, Target, Blue Navy, Children's Place. Usually these are crammed into some mall or other and there are a couple of these near CfA (Arsenal Mall in Watertown, Cambridgeside Gallery in Cambridge). Reachable by Red Line is also the biggest mall in New England: South Shore Plaza in Braintree. From these places you can find also strollers, car seats, basically everything you might need. There are also lots of small and very tempting stores for design kid clothing which comes, of course, with extra price. One of my favorite is Wild Child in Arlington.

If you're thinking of putting your kids to kindergarten, stop thinking. It's way too expensive. Even if you and your partner were both working there wouldn't be enough money to pay the bill. Maybe, if you have only one child and only partial daycare is needed. Instead, you can try hiring your friends to do the babysitting or you might think of getting an au pair.

Entertainment

This is the real thing for your family. The chances are that you're the only person with a family among the predocs and the connection with the postdocs with families is really non-existent or it could certainly be a whole lot better. So what on Earth there is to do in Boston with kids? Here's a few tips: There's a lot of different nationalities in Boston and the chances are really good that you can find a [your nationality here] school. Which means that about one day in every other week (couple of hours) families of the same nationality will come to this school and there's 'home language' classes for the kids and toddlers alike. It's a good way to find 'familiarized' people from your country. There's also a good web page listing '50 things to do with kids around Boston before they grow up' which you can find here: http://www.alphamom.com/hotspots/2008/06/activities-with-kids-boston.php. You can also join the Boston Parents Network mailing list in Yahoo, in which you'll have a lot of information what's happening in the children scene around Boston. Currently, every Monday afternoon there's 'baby friendly movies' at the Capitol theater in Arlington. Also, one of the best swimming place for kids near Boston is Walden Pond. It's a little bit difficult to get, but once your there you know it's all worth the trouble.

Because you have dragged yourself all the way to the US, it's nice to see something else than just Boston. I warmly recommend at least visiting NYC. It's relatively close by and traveling there by bus is insanely cheap (e.g. check the Chinese bus companies Fung-Wah and Lucky Star). You could also think of visiting somewhere warm during the winter if money allows.

That's about it. At least for a start. I hope the best of all luck to your research and family life, or putting priorities how they should be, to your family life and research.

Cheers,

Karri

Museums and your Smithsonian ID Card

Hello there,

something good about the SAO predoc fellowship is having a Smithsonian ID card. In principle, you can use it to get a free pass for any museum in the US, and sometimes you can invite a guest or two. Of course, the pass only includes the general exhibitions and nothing extra...

So, here is a very small list of museums I have visited showing my ID. If you have used it somewhere else, please let us know!

cheers,

Jose



Boston:

Museum of Fine Arts (MFA): one guest only, depending on the mood of the person in the counter.

New England Aquarium: just you, no guests.



New York City:

Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA): at least two guests, ask for your tickets at the "members" desk.

Guggenheim Museum: at least two guests, ask for your tickets at the "members" desk.

Whitney Museum of American Art: at least one guest, ask for your tickets at the "members" desk.

American Museum of Natural History: one guest only, ask for your tickets at the "members" desk. The general admission fee is only suggested (you pay what you want), but with your SAO card you can skip the general public ticket line.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET): at lest two guests, ask for your tickets at the "members" desk. The general admission fee is only suggested (you pay what you want), but with your SAO card you can skip the general public ticket line.


San Francisco:

Fine Arts Museum, Legion of Honor: just you, no guests.


enjoy!

Health care: continued

Ok, well here goes my first blog posting!
I decided to write about access to health care, as it is too important not to be discussed and I think I may have some helpful advice. As Luc wrote previously, it can be a daunting experience to deal with health insurance. Anyway, here are several suggestions:

1 - after arriving at CfA and enrolling in a health plan, you should check a physician's listing and call up a doctor asking if they accept new patients. You'll probably have to call up several doctors before you find one (don't forget to ask, of course, if they are covered by your health plan!).

2 - once you find a doctor, set up a "wellness consultation" as soon as possible. This appointment is meant to get you in the system as the doctor's patient and so that you can meet the doctor and he/she can familiarize himself/herself with your clinical history.

From my experience, if you are feeling sick and need to see a doctor the same day then, even if your doctor is not available, there will always be another doctor that can see you. At worst, a nurse practitioner will see you.

I urge you to follow steps 1 and 2 as early on as possible because then it will be so very much easier to see a doctor when you need one on short notice.

Alright, that's my fivepence of wisdom for today...

What I've learnt about health care in the US

I still remember the first days after I arrived in the USA as a cultural shock.
Among the various things that contributed to such an inconvenient mental state, there was one form sent by the Fellowship Coordinator: the health insurance.
Being raised in one of those countries having what Americans define, not without scorn, as "socialized health care", I never had any private health insurance. When I was sick, I knew I had to see my doctor (in the US, given the local love for acronyms that doesn't help foreigners, it is defined as PCP: Primary Care Physician), maybe he would refer me to a specialist, and I'd do some tests at the lab run by a friend of my mother's, just two blocks away from home. Everything necessary not to let this poor body of mine fall apart.

Now between me and the doctors, supposed to take care of me, there was something: I had to choose an insurance company. And a kind of policy. Should I prefer the insurance offered by the Smithsonian or look for another one? Should I go for HMO or PPO?
And above all: what are they talking about? What are HMO and PPO? How can I choose a company or another? Welcome to the jungle!
Of course I did what every homesick "socializedly health cared" foreigner would do: I just chose the insurance offered by the Smithsonian (acronym SI used hereafter).
I found out it was a PPO, which stands for Preferred Provider Organization. Private insurances are divided into two big kinds (there's something else, but I won't talk about that): PPO and HMO (Health Maintenance Organization).
I'm sure there are many differences, but the main one is that with an HMO you are obliged to have a PCP (you've got to cope with the acronyms, sorry). When you are sick, you go to your PCP, who decides your therapy or refer you to a specialist. You are not allowed to see a specialist without a referral (unless you want to pay out of your pocket). The insurance offered by SI doesn't work like this. With a PPO you are not obliged to have any PCP (though of course you can and should have one!) and you can see a specialist whenever you want to, without any referral.
There's a detail though. All these insurance companies have a network of health care providers (doctors, hospitals and other facilities): the providers in a company's network have special agreements with the company about their bills (the bigger the company, the bigger discount it gets). Once you are a member of an insurance, services obtained from an in-network provider are usually totally covered by the insurance, although you may have to pay a co-pay, that is a small contribution to the cost of the service (for example: $10 for an office visit, $50 for services at an Emergency Room). If the doctor or hospital is out-of-network, the insurance will pay only part of the bill (say 75%) if you have a PPO, or nothing at all if you have an HMO. Beware of the fact that with our PPO insurance you pay only 25% when out-of-network: 25% of A LOT can still be a lot. Whenever I need care now I know that I have to check on line, through the insurance web site which facilities are in the network.
I have also found out that I must always be prepared to unexpected and undesired surprises.
My very personal opinion is that one should always remember that the health care system is part of the market; the goal is not curing people, it's making money out of sick people.
Back to surprises. I happened to need immediate care, so I checked on line which not too far away facility was in the insurance's network. Sweet! There's a hospital 1 mile away. I'm in California without a car: I gotta walk there although it's summer and a quite hot day. Besides the fact that I had the fastest visit ever (I hadn't finished to name my symptoms, when the doc said what I should take and left), the surprise was in the bill, or better the bills. It can happen - but I couldn't imagine - that a hospital is in the network but not its ER doctors. Please, don't ask for logic. If you go to the ER in that hospital, the expenses related to the facility will be covered as in-network, the doctor's visit will be out of network and quite some money out of your pocket!

You will have another surprise if you decide to go to Harvard Health Services. I should never forget to be a predoc: nothing to do with Harvard, except using - not often really - its sport facilities. Harvard Health Service is not a hospital or a health care provider: it is a facility for the Harvard community, meaning all the people who have Harvard health insurance. Other potential customers/patients can receive only emergency care. Harvard Dental Services are open to the public.
By the way, it was with great disappointment that I found out our insurance does not include dental services, nor is any dental insurance available through SI. It does include vision coverage, which means I am allowed to see an eye-doctor or optometrist once a year to check my sight, and have discounts in buying contacts and glasses.
There's something funny about the vision coverage. It is provided by our insurance through a second company. If you need an ophtalmologyst for your annual sight check-up and pick him/her up in the medical insurance network, it is an out-of-network service! The doctor must be in the Davis Vision (the other company) network.

In principle, a medical condition (something that is pathological) should be covered by our medical insurance, even though it involves eyes or teeth. The rule of thumb is to check with Member Services if the specific condition you might have is covered or not, and at what level (50%, 80%, 100%?). "Hallo, there's this doctor who keeps saying I need some dunno-what therapy, will you pay for that?"

The first time I went to a pharmacy was also an experience. First of all a pharmacy in the US is a small supermarket, which is not necessarily bad. In my previous "socialized health" experience, a pharmacy used to be a place for medicines and health related products that are usually very good and very expensive. "It's sold only in pharmacies" used to mean "it's a pain for your wallet, but - man - this works". I never have this feeling in the US and I guess the fact that pharmacies sell cigarettes doesn't help me think they care about my health.
What I found odd was the way drugs are sold. There are two different places in the prescription drug area: one to order the medicine and the other one to pick it up. Apparently only over-the-counter drugs are pre-packaged: prescription drugs are stored in big amounts in the pharmacy and then packaged for every single customer. I had to wait about ten minutes to get a box of pills with a label on it and on the label my name, the doctor and the dosage. Fast food but slow drugs!

My resolution: I'll eat well, sleep long, do as much sport as I can (which doesn't mean much) and hopefully I won't have a stroke while yelling at the insurance Member Services on the phone.

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!