UCSC Astronomy & Astrophysics 
Unofficial Orientation Guide

Scott Seagroves, Lynne Raschke

last update: Apr 11, 2002

Important: much of the information in here about room numbers, phone numbers, and other where-things-are will be going out of date this summer as the astro dept moves from Kerr Hall into a new building, the ISB. I will try to keep this updated as I learn new stuff, but bear with me. And certainly don't keep old copies of this document around; check in the summer/fall for new ones.

Contents

1  Introduction

This guide is a bit crammed full of information. It's pretty dense, and probably not fun to read in one sitting. What we hope is that the answers to most (or maybe all) of your questions are in here, and we hope you come here first to look for them. When the answers aren't here, or the stated answers are wrong, let us know.

First there is a section on what to do when you first arrive. Then the guide is organized from smallest to largest, from the Dept., to the University, then the city of Santa Cruz and environs.

This document lives on the web at
http://www.ucolick.org/~ board/grad/orientation/orientation.html, so check there for updates (or just start at http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/grads.xml).

Important: much of the information in here about room numbers, phone numbers, and other where-things-are will be going out of date this summer as the astro dept moves from Kerr Hall into a new building, the ISB. I will try to keep this updated as I learn new stuff, but bear with me. And certainly don't keep old copies of this document around; check in the summer/fall for new ones.

2  What to do in your first days

2.1  Upon your arrival at the Astronomy & Astrophysics Dept.

• Go to the Dept. office (Kerr 477) and introduce yourself to Mary Kiegelis, the department manager, if she's around. She can probably help you through all the rest of this.
• Get a key to Kerr hall and a ``grad'' key. Mary will help you contact the Lick Observatory Business Office (LOBO), and you go up there (they're in the Natural Sciences II Annex) to get your keys.
• Mary will give you some paperwork to get a computer account. Then, go downstairs to NICS, the computer system administrators, and set it all up. They're located in several offices around Kerr 13. Your new account may only work on one machine, bigdog, for a day or so.
• Get on the payroll. There are a couple of aspects here. If you will ever TA, which of course you will, then you need to get on the Natural Sciences Division payroll. They're located in Baskin Engineering, a.k.a. Applied Sciences. Mary can help you get in touch with them. For doing research as opposed to teaching, you will need to get on the payroll with LOBO, which you can probably do when you go get your keys. You can set up direct deposit to your bank accounts at the two payroll offices. If you will be on a fellowship, then you will be paid no matter what. Not sure how to set up direct deposit for a fellowship, but it is possible.
• Introduce yourself to Kurtis Williams, a grad student whose office is Kerr 231. He is in charge of office space and will show you where your desk and such is.
• You already have a mailbox in the UCO/Lick mailroom, Kerr 9. Check for mail.

2.2  Within your first couple of weeks

• Get a UCSC ID card. These are available at ID Card Services, located adjacent to the Bay Tree Bookstore. (Ok, it turns out you can't get your ID until mid-September anyway, so if you're here early you can ignore this.)
• Register for fall classes early, so there won't be any surprises if you have missing paperwork or something. (For instance, if you just graduated, you may have to have an updated transcript sent to UCSC to prove you got your degree.)
• Get a CA driver's license or ID, and register your vehicle with the DMV. Even if you do not own the vehicle (like it's your parents'), technically you must register it anyway within 10 days.
• Besides getting your CA driver's license, do other things that establish your California residency, like open a bank account, register to vote, etc. Of course the best way to establish residency is with a lease/rental agreement.

2.3  Find housing!

3  The Astronomy & Astrophysics Dept.

3.1  Who's who

Grads

Table 1: Current Astronomy & Astrophysics graduate students as of January 2002. Name Email1 Year2 Previous Education Current Advisor(s) Phil Choi pchoi AC Wesleyan Guhathakurta Ian Dobbs-Dixon iandd 1 UC-Santa Cruz ... Shawfeng Dong dong AC U. of Science & Tech. (China) Lin Marla Geha mgeha AC Cornell, NMSU Guhathakurta Justin Harker jharker 1 U. of Wisconsin-Madison ... Justin Howell jhhowell ~ 4 Caltech, Columbia Guhathakurta Patrik Jonsson patrik AC Uppsala (Sweden) Primack, Faber Michael Kuhlen mqk 2 Caltech Woosley, Madau David Lai david 1 Reed ... Laura Langland-Shula laura 1 ... ... Sarah Martell martell 1 U. of Washington ... Alex McDaniel alexm 2 Princeton Laughlin Jason Melbourne jmel 1 Wesleyan ... Anne Metevier anne AC Northwestern Koo Greg Novak novak 1 Harvard Lin Lynne Raschke lynne 4 Haverford Faber Tami Rogers tami 3 U. of Arizona Woosley Linda Schroder linda AC Arizona State Brodie Scott Seagroves scott 3 UNC-Chapel Hill Thorsett Andrew Sheinis sheinis AC UMass-Amherst, Worcester Miller Kim-Vy Tran vy AC U. of Arizona Illingworth Kurtis Williams williams 5 Penn State Bolte Weiqun Zhang zhang AC U. of Science & Tech. (China) Woosley

Faculty and other researchers

Astronomers vs. professors?

3.2  Projects/Acronyms

3.3  The graduate curriculum

Classes

Table 2: Astronomy & Astrophysics courses. (Boldface indicates a required class; 14 total required.) Physics (3)3 Stars (3) Galaxies (3) Other (2) E&M/Plasmas Stellar Structure Galaxies A Intro. to Research General Relativity Star Formation Galaxies B Ind. Study Physics of Astrophysics A Star Death Galaxies C Observation Techniques Physics of Astrophysics B Accretion Cosmology Radio/Sub-mm Gas Dynamics Compact Objects Low-Density Instrumentation QM sequence4 Atmospheres Stellar Dynamics Planetary Science Classical Mechanics Numerical Techniques Magnetohydrodynamics

As for the 12 ``real'' classes: You will be required to take 3 classes in particular. One is an E&M class on radiation and plasma physics; one is a standard course in stellar structure & evolution; one is a standard course on galaxies. After that, you must take at least 2 more classes from the ``physics'' column, 2 more from the ``stars'' column, 2 more from the ``galaxies'' column, and then take whatever you like until you have 12. Read more about classes in §3.4.

TA

Research Project

It is certainly allowed (sometimes even encouraged) to change topics completely between your Research Project and your thesis. So don't worry that in your first year you are choosing the field you will spend the rest of your life on. Of course, if you find that you do want to continue in a certain specialty beyond the Research Project requirements, and into a thesis, well that's fine too.

FLASH

Prelims

You should get your hands on prelims from previous years; that's the best way to grasp what level the exams are at. But basically, the physics exam is intended to test your use of basic physics and physical intuition. In principle there is no need to have taken the grad astro classes for this exam. You are expected to answer/attempt all questions on the physics exam. The astro exam, on the other hand, is usually formatted as a question or two from every class that has been offered in our dept. over the previous two years. (In addition, sometimes classes from outside the dept. are included if it is known that astro students took the class or it otherwise seems relevant.) You are then usually asked to answer/attempt a portion of the questions, of your choosing.

Dept. Review

Qual

More FLASHes

Defense

3.4  Classes

The current mode of class scheduling in the dept. works like this: one year is a ``stars'' year - 220A (Stellar Structure & Evolution), 220B (Star & Planet Formation), and 220C (Late Stellar Evolution/Death/Supernovae) are taught in succession in such years. The next year, then, is a ``galaxies'' year, with an analogous sequence of courses taught. In any year there are other courses taught from any and all columns as well.

It is not always the case that the same person teaches the same course every time, but often it is. Here's a quick list of the courses and who you might want to chat with about them, along with a pithy statement and the textbook used if there is a consistent one. Be warned that there's been some tinkering with what goes in what classes, and that continues to go on, so don't take this as cast in stone:

AY202: E&M/Plasma Physics

George Blumenthal. Basically a course on the second half of Jackson - classical radiation processes. A required class for astro grads (the required class of the ``physics'' column); often cross-listed as PH213, the second half of the physics grads' E&M sequence.

AY204A: Physics of Astrophysics A

Doug Lin. What material goes in what order in the PoA series is in flux. In the past this has been a course on dynamics and statistical mechanics. Not sure what it will be in the future.

AY204B: Physics of Astrophysics B

George Blumenthal. Ditto the previous PoA disclaimer. In the past the course has been on the disparate topics of quantum radiation processes and MHD.

AY205: Intro to Astro Research

Graeme Smith. Graeme organizes a seminar series, basically, wherein each faculty member comes and describes her/his research with your class of 1^st-years. In some sense not a ``real'' class, but required.

AY210: Stellar Atmospheres

??. Not offered in anyone's memory.

AY220A: Stellar Structure & Evolution

Peter Bodenheimer. The standard course in stellar structure. Peter uses Kippenhahn & Weigert as the text. Pencil-and-paper as well as stellar model coding is involved. This class is the required course in the ``stars'' column.

AY220B: Star & Planet Formation

Peter Bodenheimer. Much like 220A in form; assumes 220A as prerequisite.

AY220C: Advanced Stages of Stellar Evolution & Nucleosynthesis

Stan Woosley. ``Star Death'' or ``Supernovae'' - no one calls it by the catalog name. Assumes 220A as prerequisite.

AY222: Planetary Science

Doug Lin. Not taught recently, but will be this year, so tell us how it goes.

AY225: Compact Objects

Steve Thorsett. Not taught recently.

AY226: General Relativity

George Blumenthal. When last taught, George used Weinberg's text.

AY230: Low-Density Astrophysics

Bill Mathews. Sort of a course on the ISM.

AY231: Astrophysical Gas Dynamics

Bill Mathews. Also sort of a course on the ISM.

AY233: Physical Cosmology

George Blumenthal. Regarded as complementary, but perhaps prerequisite to, Joel's class PHYS224.

AY235: Numerical Techniques

Greg Laughlin. A new class.

AY237: Accretion

Doug Lin. Don't know very much about this class, sorry.

AY240A: Galactic & Extragalactic Systems

Sandy Faber. The required class from the ``galaxies'' column. Binney & Merrifield with some from Binney & Tremaine.

AY240B: ditto?

Garth Illingworth. Not sure what the ``official'' name of this is, but like AY240A but with more emphasis on high-z galaxies.

AY240C: ditto?

Piero Madau. Very high redshift cosmology.

AY253: Stellar Dynamics

Doug Lin. A standard course out of Binney & Tremaine.

AY257: Modern Observational Techniques

Mike Bolte. Data reduction techniques, etc.

AY260: Instrumentation

Jerry Nelson & Terry Mast. Jerry and Terry organize a series of lectures by themselves and many others on topics in instrumentation.

AY275: Radio/Sub-mm

Steve Thorsett. Last time Steve suggested Rohlfs & Wilson, and Burke & Graham-Smith.

PH224: Cosmology/Early Universe

Joel Primack. A course with a heavy emphasis on current research.

PH215-218: QM/QFT sequence

Various instructors. Standard non-relativistic quantum mechanics (215 & 216) followed by quantum field theory (217 & 218). A sequence, each class a prerequisite for the later courses.

EMS275: Magnetohydrodynamics

Gary Glatzmaier. Offered in the Earth & Marine Sciences Dept. Gary also teaches courses in fluid dynamics that parallel the astro dept's.

EMS290: Topics in Planetary Science

Erik Asphaug. A seminar.

ENG206: Bayesian Statistics

David Draper. A new course in the Applied Mathematics dept.

AY292: Seminar

The astro colloquium.

AY297: Independent Study

What you sign up for to get credit-hours for non-thesis research, like your 2^nd-year Research Project. Mary can give you the codes to sign up with your particular advisor.

AY299: Thesis Research

What you sign up for to get credit-hours (and thus make you a student) after classes are done and you are working on your thesis.

AY301: Teaching

What you sign up for so that TAing appears on your transcript.

If you take classes outside the department, keep in touch with Steve Thorsett or Stan Woosley (Dept. Chair) about what requirements they might fulfill. We have in mind here some courses in the Physics Dept. or in Earth & Marine Sciences.

You register for classes via the Schedule of Classes and Teleslug. The SoC is at http://reg.ucsc.edu/soc/ while Teleslug is http://teleslug.ucsc.edu/. All that is explained in §4.

In principle you have the option to take classes for a grade, rather than Pass/Fail (or, we guess, Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory is what your grade record actually says). The consensus opinion is that there is no reason to opt for grades, and we aren't aware of grads who do or have. You will receive ``narrative evaluations'' of your performance, once the professor gets around to writing them. These can either be essentially just a grade (``Student X performed in the middle third of the class''), or, in the best of situations, a highly-detailed account of your strengths and weaknesses. This can alert you to what you might want to work on.

3.5  Advising

Before you are doing research, if you feel you need advising, in some sense any faculty member will do. More strictly, though, Steve Thorsett is the Associate Chair in charge of the grad program. So probably, you should start with him on whatever advising questions you have.

Once you start research, your research advisor is your advisor. (You should still feel free to shop around for opinions, however.) Upon passing the Dept. Review, you will need to form a committee of advisors to serve as your Qualifying Exam Committee. This same committee will likely become all or most of your Thesis Exam Committee when you do your defense.

3.6  Department events

The Astronomy & Astrophysics colloquium is on Wednesday afternoons. Cookies and coffee start at around 3:30pm, usually in Kerr 283 but sometimes in the 2^nd floor lobby. Then, eventually, people wander up to Nat. Sci. Annex room 101, where the colloquium talk is actually held. The talk typically starts around 4:00. See 3.7 for important info about colloquium cookies.

The FLASH - Friday Lunch Astronomy Seminar Hour - is held on Fridays at 12:30 in Kerr 283. Bring your lunch and see a talk. Sometimes there are FLASH-like talks on other days, given cute names like MLASH, THLASH, etc.

The talk schedule for a week is usually emailed out on Monday. Repeated reminders of the talk may come from the speaker's host(s). In addition, the current talk schedule is available at http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/talks.xml.

Some other talks in other departments: The Physics Dept. colloquium is on Thursday afternoons, with a similar 3:30 cookies and 4:00 talk schedule. The colloquium schedule is at http://maxwell.ucsc.edu/events/colloquia.html. The CODEP seminars are always moving around, but the schedule is at http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~asphaug/taps.html.

GAS, the Grad Astro Seminar, is something like a journal club. Grads give short informal talks on a rotating schedule. Check it out at http://www.ucolick.org/~novak/Gas/.

Subject to the whims of the Beer Czar, we usually have Beer Hour on Friday evenings.

Other less frequent department events include:

• The annual Lick Picnic, at the Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. This year it's on September 22.
• A welcoming reception for you, the incoming grad students, sometime in the fall. Be warned, you will probably be asked to supply some story about yourself or something.
• Cake and champagne for grads completing their defenses; goodbye festivities for departing postdocs, grads, etc., the occasional wild party at a faculty member's house, ...
• Prospective season: hosting prospective graduate students, answering questions, taking them out to dinner, etc., as was done for you when you were a prospective.

3.7  Your dept. responsibilities; Czars

Every grad student who has not yet passed his/her Qual is needed to prepare cookies & coffee for colloquium. Each week, it becomes the next student's turn. When it's your turn, you should go buy about $20 worth of cookies and other goodies. You prepare the coffee, cookies, and set up the room where the refreshments will be served. You clean up after the colloquium, turn in your receipt to the office to get reimbursed, and you're done. The Cookie Czar will explain all this to you as well. Or you can check out the instructions at the current cookie czar's website: http://www.ucolick.org/~laura/cookies/. You may wonder why this is our job - the origins are lost to unrecorded history.

Various other responsibilities are delegated through czarships. In principle, czars are elected democratically by the grads; in practice, czars often choose their successors and the voting is a formality. As the name suggests, czars typically have complete reign over their domain. Czars are determined in a meeting held in the fall, long enough after you get here that you'll have figured most of this out. Here's some of the current czars:

Czar Czar

The `czar of czars' is our graduate student representative in Dept. faculty meetings - our way of providing input into many department decisions. Also, the czar czar is in charge of grad office space (so is sometimes also known as Space Czar). This position can entail a lot of work. Currently the position is in flux, with some of the duties being filled by Patrik Jonsson.

Telescope Czar

The telescope czar keeps track of the locations, state of health, sign-outs, etc., of the several small amateur telescopes the department owns. The current telescope czar is Jason Melbourne.

CPMC Czar

The CPMC is the Computing Policy Management Committee. This czar is the grad representative to that committee. Currently Phil Choi.

Beer Czar

This extremely important czar is in charge of beer hour on Friday evenings. In the distant past beer czars arranged for folks to meet at a bar downtown; the current beer czar has simplified the process by bringing beer and pizza to the Kerr Hall balcony. Prices are low; chances for hilarity are high. The current beer czars are Mike Kuhlen and Ian Dobbs-Dixon.

Colloquium Cookie Czar

This czar is in charge of the assignment of colloquium cookie duties to pre-qual grads, as well as maintaining all the necessary supplies. The current colloquium cookie czar is Laura Langland-Shula.

Prospective Czar

This czar has the arduous task of coordinating the visits and recruitment efforts for prospective graduate students. This position can be quite a lot of work. This year's prospective czar is Tami Rogers, assisted by Alex McDaniel.

Ask-an-Astronomer

OK, it doesn't have ``czar'' in its name. This team answers questions from our ask-an-astronomer website. The team is currently Kurtis Williams, Marla Geha, Mike Kuhlen, and Greg Novak.

GSA rep

Another without ``czar'' - so sue us. This person is the Astro department representative to the Graduate Student Association.

Mail Czar

This czar or czars handles paper mail the Observatory and Dept. receive from the public, often with questions similar to what Ask-an-Astronomer gets. Currently these are David Lai and Sarah Martell.

Admissions committee

The faculty allow a grad to sit on the admissions committee that decides who enters our grad program. Last year this representative was Anne Metevier.

Advising

The grad who serves as advising point-person is Scott Seagroves.

RSI Czar

This czar is in charge of distributing painful debilitating injuries - just kidding. Many grad students have suffered a little or a lot from RSI - repetitive strain injuries - because we sit around and type all the time. This czarship was created as a watchdog/activist for various things like ergonomic furniture, seminars, xwrits software (that reminds you to take wrist breaks), and other safety concerns. Currently the RSI czar is Kurtis Williams.

Phone Czars

Traditionally (but not without protest) the inhabitants of Kerr 413 have phone calls from the public directed toward them. These calls range from ``Hey what's this bright star I see for an hour or so after sunset in the west?'' to ``Is it true that we will all die because of the tidal forces during a planetary alignment?'' and so on. You don't always know the answers - often you don't even understand the questions - but just do your best and be nice.

GAS Czar

The grad student journal-club like seminar is maintained by Greg Novak.

Of course, other things come up that need to be done, that don't necessarily fit into these czarships. For instance, the document you are reading needed to be written; similarly a FAQ was written for prospective students in the spring (and some of this is cribbed from there). Usually we take a czar-like attitude about these things too, meaning once someone has volunteered to take care of a task it generally becomes that person's exclusive domain.

3.8  Computing

The Lick and Dept. system administrators are NICS - Network, Information, and Computing Services. Their email alias is nics@ucolick.org. Be warned that the information in this section is more likely to go out-of-date soon, given the nature of computers and computing.

Hardware

Public machines running SunOS/Solaris include isis and megatron. Public DECs running Digital UNIX include bigdog. Public Linux boxes include cobra, mariachi and zoltar. We have probably missed some public machines.

Your public account will appear as /u/yourusername, which is usually visible from any NICS-managed machine (public or not) as /home/public/yourusername.

If you don't have a computer, eventually you will move up from the X terminal on your desk to a computer of your own, so that you do not have to share processor time with others. This will mean you will have both a public account and a separate, private account on that machine. That machine may be a NICS hand-me-down, or a machine bought for you by an advisor (which can then be NICS-managed or not).

A quick list of some printers: the main general-use printer on the 4^th floor is, naturally enough, floor4. The color printer next to it is color. You can use the command printers to see lots of printers around the dept. if you are curious what a printer's name is.

Software

Often one can download open-source software and install it privately on your own account. This is fine. But make sure the software you want really doesn't exist elsewhere or that it's not worth it to ask NICS to install/update it, before you go using your own disk space on it. (An example: I (SS) keep my own set of L^AT_EX packages, my own set of IDL Astro Library routines, etc., because I keep them more up-to-date than NICS does.)

OK, this will certainly not be an exhaustive list, but here's some of the software commonly used around here:

Network/Internet

All insecure forms of login are disabled; we use ssh for remote logins (also slogin) and remote command-execution. Print to the printers via lpr and other scripts/variations thereof; query the print queue with lpq. netscape is the default browser, but you could try opera or mozilla. Mail programs used by folks include pine, elm, mutt, and UNIX mail.

Document production

Standard editors like emacs, pico, vi, etc., are used around here. We have a fairly standard T_EX/L^AT_EX/ AAST_EX/ BIBT_EX  distribution. Some people use StarOffice (soffice) for working with documents (and you can make PowerPoint-like presentations). xfig is a clunky but useful graphics-production program; for graphics manipulation we also have gimp.

Viewers

For viewing all these sorts of documents, we have xdvi as part of the standard T_EX distribution - and we forgot to mention dvips and dvipdf for making PostScript and PDF files from your L^AT_EX dvi output. Various implementations of GhostScript (gv and gs) are used to look at PS and PDF files; often more useful for PDF is acroread. xv is useful for looking at graphics files in almost any format.

Science

Here's where we're most likely incomplete. For coding, standard f77, f90, cc, etc., compilers are around. Also people code in IDL (idl), perl, other scripting languages, and the standard UNIX shell scripts plus sed, awk, and derivatives. For producing graphics/plots there are IDL, SuperMongo (sm), the pgplot and pgperl routines for producing plots from within other code, xmgrace, and we're sure more that we're forgetting. Data reduction with IRAF (plus ximtool and SAOImage/ds9), IDL, and other standard stuff is, well, standard. Other, more specialized packages like DAOPHOT/ALLSTAR/ALLFRAME, GIM2D, SExtractor, and many many more are usually maintained at the user level (or gotten from the authors) rather than at the system-wide level.

3.9  Funding/Support

You are, of course, encouraged to apply for funding (grants, fellowships, etc.) of your own. This frees you from the particular project an advisor might have a grant for, for instance.

Assuming you don't have external support, you need to secure funding for the next quarter, every quarter. That is, suppose your Dept. fellowship is up (if you have one at all) after, say, two quarters. Then sometime during the winter quarter you need to find someone to do research with during the spring, or else sign up to TA in the spring. The Dept. fellowship given in the first year is the only real instance of ``free'' money - for the rest of your time you will need to GSR or TA (barring external support).

The pay scale is confusing, and we will probably get it wrong here. The gross pay for a GSR in our department before advancing to candidacy (pre-qual) is ``Step 4'', $1566/month. Immediately upon advancing to candidacy the pay increases to ``Step 5'', $1670/month. One year later, the pay increases again to ``Step 6'', $1748/month. There is a plan which may happen, which would implement a pay decrease of one ``step'' upon year 7 in grad school - an obvious attempt to keep time-to-degree short. Here's the confusing part: TAs, we think, make $1413/month if they are not 1^st-years. In your first year, as some sort of break, the Dept. pays your ``fees'' (a couple hundred dollars a month), so if you TA your pay is a bit higher in your 1^st year. Confusing? Yes.

TAs and GSRs are paid at the beginning of each month, for the previous month. This means you may not get paid until November 1, depending on when you joined the payroll. If you are on a fellowship, you will be paid once at the beginning of the quarter - make sure the money lasts! It is possible to take out (rather enormous) federal student loans while in graduate school. Not necessarily a bad thing, but be careful.

3.10  Miscellany

Little things that didn't fit anywhere else are here.

Your address at the mail room (Kerr 9) is something like:
UCO/Lick Observatory
Astronomy Dept., Kerr Hall, UCSC
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Other variants that take advantage of the UCSC address (1156 High St.) will probably also work.

Mary will loan you keys to the supply closet (adjacent to the stairwell on the basement floor) whenever you need. There you can get all sorts of office supplies for your desk. She also keeps a mini-stash in her office.

The copy machines take copy-cards, not real money. When TAing, the dept. can issue you a copy card for that purpose; similarly your research advisor can usually get you a copy card that deducts from his/her grant. For personal use, you need to purchase a copy card from one of the libraries, and maintain money on it.

You need a sticker from Mary at the beginning of each new quarter, which goes on the front of your student ID. This indicates that you are currently enrolled; without the sticker your ID has essentially expired, meaning you can't ride the bus for free and other inconveniences.

4  The University

4.1  What's where; campus facilities

Science Hill

``Union''

Cashier, Registrar, etc.

Libraries

Mail

Restaurants and coffee carts

There are Peabody's Coffee carts/stands all over campus: in the Theater Arts Center; in Sinsheimer; in Earth & Marine Sciences; and probably more.

The ``lunch lady'' brings food to the 2^nd-floor lobby of Kerr every weekday at 12:00.

4.2  Structure

So for your purposes, the only relevant levels in the hierarchy are the Natural Sciences Division, through which you get paid when you TA (among other things), and the Graduate Division, which sets things like the deadlines for submitting one's PhD materials, thesis guidelines, etc.

Many activities, such as registering for classes, changing your address with the Registrar, and more, can be done online. Most of the websites mentioned in the text, along with some more, are collected in §A.

4.3  Transportation and parking

Parking is very expensive. The permits that are available to grads are listed at
http://www2.ucsc.edu/taps/students01.html#grads; a B permit will cost you $192/year. A much more cost-effective option is the carpool permit; a B carpool permit is $108/quarter, and this can be split among those participating in the carpool. (There are various requirements - you need to show that you live off-campus, show your car registration, etc.) If you are concerned that there might be times when you don't want to carpool, you can also buy a packet of 50 ``scratch-offs'' (one-time-use permits) for $125, once per year.

4.4  Housing

If you are married, in a domestic partnership, or have children or other dependents, you are eligible for Family Student Housing. Those with children are given priority; the rent is $810/month, which buys you a two-bedroom townhouse. This is a great deal in Santa Cruz. Check them out at http://www.housing.ucsc.edu/housing/family.html.

For living off-campus, the University has the Community Rentals Office where there are many listings. They are physically located in Social Sciences II, but you can now access the listings online at https://housingweb.ucsc.edu/cro/welcome.asp.

5  Santa Cruz and environs

5.1  Geography

So, the immediately adjacent towns that you might see, for instance, in housing listings, are: Santa Cruz, Live Oak, Capitola, Soquel, Aptos, along the Bay roughly from west to east; in the hills north of Santa Cruz along Hwy 9 (and the San Lorenzo River) are the towns (from south to north) of Felton, Ben Lomond, and Boulder Creek; north of the campus along Empire Grade is Bonny Doon; Davenport is northwest of Santa Cruz along Hwy 1; north along Hwy 17 is Scotts Valley.

The urban areas of the San Francisco Bay are closest ``over the hill'' at the South Bay - San Jose, Santa Clara, etc. This can be a 30-minute drive over Hwy 17, or much much longer depending on traffic. All the larger cities from San Jose up to San Francisco (on the west side of the Bay) or up through Oakland and Berkeley (on the east side of the Bay) are easily two hours' drive from Santa Cruz, and often much shorter depending on traffic.

5.2  Housing

If access to the University by bus, bike, or easy commute is important to you (as it is to most), then you probably want to live in ``westside'' Santa Cruz (west of the river), or in ``eastside'' Santa Cruz or Live Oak. As you move further east to Capitola, Soquel, Aptos, etc., you will find that you have to transfer bus routes to get to the University, or that your 12-minute car ride becomes 50 minutes during rush hour.

It's hard to pin down what a ``typical'' rent is; it of course depends on how great the place you're renting is. It is possible to pay less than $500/month, but that is becoming rare. So, expect that you may need to fork out first and last month's rent plus a deposit in order to move in to a place - that could be $1500-$2000.

A bunch of places to look for listings are given in §A. Finding housing is a bit of a game. You are in competition with lots of other students, but remember that many of them are undergrads. You stand out if you present yourself differently. Rather than calling yourself a ``student'', emphasize that you are a ``PhD student'' or something similar. Don't assume that a potential landlord knows what a grad student is, or that it differs from an 18-year old college freshman. Pursue housing actively; passively leaving messages and waiting for calls back may work eventually but will take much longer than you'd like. If you need references, Mary in the dept. office, or perhaps a faculty member if you ask nicely, will lie and claim to have known you forever. Or if they won't lie, they can at least vouch for the fact that you are employed and all.

5.3  Transportation

Some public transport is available to get over the hill - via the Santa Cruz route that goes over 17, or via Greyhound and other bus services. Once over the hill it is not hard to make one's way to the Bay area's transit options like BART (http://www.bart.org) and Caltrain (http://www.caltrain.com/caltrain/index.html).

There is a lot of support for bicyclists: bike racks on buses, a University van with bike trailer from Mission & Bay to campus each morning (see the TAPS webpage); bike racks for BART and CalTrain, etc.

Most who have lived in Santa Cruz without a car gave in after a year or so - it is pretty difficult and time-consuming to go to the city or go to Target in Watsonville without a car.

5.4  Businesses and other miscellany

Suppose you need to shop for groceries; this seems like something that might come up. Your choices include the Safeway on the westside at Mission and Swift; New Leaf Market or Zanotto's downtown; on the eastside a Safeway along Soquel or an Albertson's along Water. As we write this paragraph we realize that there are places to shop everywhere and it is silly to try to enumerate them so perhaps this section was a bad idea.

Hey, if you just can't live without the mall, there's one at Capitola Rd. & 41st Ave. in Capitola.

Something you may need to know relatively soon is the location of the DMV: they are on Capitola Rd. beyond 41st Avenue (like 42nd or 43rd), in Capitola. It helps if you make an appointment first.

Opinions vary on local banks. Bank of America has the advantage of omnipresent ATMs and all the disadvantages of a faceless corporate conglomerate. At the other extreme are the Bay Federal Credit Union and the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union. Wells-Fargo is also used by some grads.

A  Useful websites

Housing Links

Dept. and UCSC

UCSC: http://www.ucsc.edu
UCSC Schedule of Classes: http://reg.ucsc.edu/soc/
Teleslug: http://teleslug.ucsc.edu
Cashier: http://www2.ucsc.edu/accts-rec/cashier.htm
Financial Aid: http://www2.ucsc.edu/fin-aid/
Registrar: http://reg.ucsc.edu
Registrar change-of-address form: https://oasas.ucsc.edu/reg/address/
Academic Calendars: http://reg.ucsc.edu/calendar/
Transportation and Parking: http://www2.ucsc.edu/taps
Bay Tree Bookstore: http://slugstore.ucsc.edu
Grad Commons: http://www2.ucsc.edu/gradcommons
GSA: http://www2.ucsc.edu/gsa/
UCSC Arts & Lectures Series: http://events.ucsc.edu/artslecs/
Grad Student Housing: http://www.housing.ucsc.edu/housing/graduate.html
Family Student Housing: http://www.housing.ucsc.edu/housing/family.html

Santa Cruz and environs

What movies are playing, when? http://www.metroactive.com/movies/times-sc.html
Was that an earthquake? Where? How big? http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm

Footnotes:

¹all emails are @ucolick.org

²Once a student has successfully proposed a thesis topic (passed his or her ``Qualifying Exam''), that student has Advanced to Candidacy (AC). At that point it becomes very easy to lose track of how long s/he's been here ...

³The minimum number of classes you must take from each column is listed.

⁴These courses are taught in other departments.