Apartment and bank account

So the other day was my first at Cornell and it was then that it all dawned upon me. Life that I had left behind for four years came back flashing in my mind bringing with it some fond memories and some scary! I was excited to again begin studying, immersing myself in books, going to practical classes, discussing challenging financial problems and coding complex algorithms, yeah… I still am J But, along with that, I’m also excited to live graduate life, to interact with people from different backgrounds and upbringing, to learn from great intellectuals at Cornell, to explore different fields and to play sports. One and a half years seem awfully small to do all that but I am optimistic. I think everyone is which is what makes it all the more exciting and competitive. Every person, especially those coming for a professional masters degree, are looking to network, to make long lasting and worthy contacts, to build relationships and in that complex process they try to present themselves in the best manner and profile others based on their demeanor.

But let me not get into the psychology of human relationships. That’s an altogether different field and I’m sure there would be a department in Cornell that pertains to that too! So I took a shower and set off from my dorm to do the one thing that’s crucial for peace of mind, looking for a place to live. I hook up on craigslist and create a list of places that fit my budget and are at a comfortable distance from my department and are furnished and include utilities. There are a few trivial items that one needs to be careful about while looking out for apartments in Ithaca, and maybe in other places in US too, which I wasn’t aware about initially, such as:

· Utilities – Includes heat, water, electricity and cooking gas. Heat is a tricky part coz sometimes it just means heating of the water while the apartment heat is electricity driven so if you’re paying for electricity then you better clarify the source of the heat.

· Trash – There’s a big enough responsibility of managing trash here and it doesn’t cost much but still useful to clarify with the owner

· Snow – Come November and its going to be freaking freezing! You’d want your patios and sidewalks free of snow so either you shovel it on your own or hire someone else or the landlord pays for it.

· Cable and Internet – Some places come equipped with such connections and you just need to pay for the plan while in others you need to get a new connection. In some its included in the rent!

· Furniture – Most of the times the “furnished” only means a bed, dresser, desk and chair in each room and a couch and table in the living. Kitchens almost always come equipped with a fridge, stove with oven and a microwave. If you need anything else, you need to check with the landlord.

I then embark on the quest for my apartment but I also had another important agenda which was to open a bank account. I started from the place where I was staying, Thurston avenue in North Campus, and headed north. The GPS in my phone was guiding me well and I could find my way to the place I wanted to reach. The apartment was nice, 3BR and well furnished for $1500 but I wanted to explore further. Generally you’d be able to find good apartments for $500 per person but in peak times this can go to $650-$700. I moved on and I found it a bit hard to feel that I was on top of a hill where Cornell is supposed to be. It wasn’t until I went further along Wyckoff towards the north that it started to slope down which is when I realized the biggest shortfall of google maps, its inability to inform about gradients. Although the GPS conveniently showed a curved path where I had to take a left on Kline Rd it failed to depict the slope of the path and it took some effort to continue along the slope till I finally reached at N. Tioga and E. Lincoln. It was a great relief. Although I managed to descend the road, the entire act was, in effect, the same as crouching and squatting a hundred times and it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized the toll it had taken on my muscles, but more on that later!

So I keep following N. Tioga street all the way to the end to reach a place called The Commons. Bank of America was my final destination for the simple reason that it was one of the biggest bank in the US and it would convenient to transfer money to different locations. Fortunately, along the way, I came across a few apartments and I kept jotting down their information and a majority of them were about $500-550 per person. I was looking mainly at 3BR.

Finally I reached the BoA and had to wait for quite some time before someone attended me. My primary concern was that the account shouldn’t have any monthly fee and should have no minimum balance criteria, much like a student’s account. Along with that I didn’t want the account to have any fee associated with incoming transfers and outgoing as well. Something that I came to know recently was that wire transfers are the ones initiated from a branch with the help of a teller and thus carry a one time charge while online transfers are actually called electronic transfer or bill pay. Having had this clarified I finally opened my account in M&T Bank since it was the only one offering the student accounts (HSBC hadn’t started with the scheme yet and was going to sometime in August). The first accomplishment!