My Masters Admission Journey (Part 4)

Pre-arrival Tasks

Housing

You should apply for housing well in advance. Preferably, even before getting a visa as sometimes your visa interview may be scheduled only a few days before your classes start. You may have to wire a certain amount to be deposited as security money to get the lease. You should first look for on-campus or university housing as they will be cheaper than off-campus ones. Email the housing-related personnel if you feel like pleading your case to them will expedite your housing decision. But, in the meantime, you should look for any suitable off-campus housing option by talking to seniors or friends already studying at the university. Once you have signed your lease agreement, keep a copy with you when your travel. You may be asked to present it by the TSA agent at the immigration booth during your entry to the states.

Vaccines

You may be required to show proof of vaccinations (e.g., MMR, Meningococcal) or tests (e.g., Tuberculosis test) before the start of your classes. You should email the health network of your university to see if you could delay them until you arrive (and maybe get them free from the university medical center). If not, you should schedule an appointment at your local medical center. Some of the vaccines have multiple doses and need to be separated by a certain number of days (e.g., two doses of MMR are required to be 28 days apart). So, in order to allow sufficient time, you should proceed with them well ahead of time. Print the university-provided health document and get it signed (and sealed) by your local health professional before you upload them to the university health portal.

Health Checkup

You might not be able to get a full body checkup once you reach the USA. As the treatment cost is not affordable without insurance (and even with insurance, you may not get all the services), you should get yourself checked up for any major issues. Apart from the usual tests, you should also do vision and dental exams.

Credit/Debit Card Dollar Endorsement

It will take some time before you open a bank account and get a local debit/credit card once you move to the US. Although most of the places will accept cash, you may not want to carry cash everywhere as it poses safety risks and can become quite inconvenient. If possible, you should bring a debit/credit from your home country with the ability to do foreign transactions. But you should refrain from withdrawing money from US ATM using your home country’s debit card as it will incur both charges from the ATM and the card issuing bank (and you should never withdraw money using a credit card). Use the debit/credit card on POS (Point of Sale) and online transactions until you get your US debit/credit card.

Travel Documents

Print your travel itinerary (Flight Information, Schedule, Baggage Allowance, etc.) and keep multiple copies with you and/or your spouse (if he/she is traveling with you). If you're carrying extra, you should pay the baggage fee beforehand (and keep a printout). If any leg of your journey involves a bus/train, see if you can purchase the tickets online well before your journey. Some of the reasons for paying tickets online are: you may not always have an internet connection, your cards may stop working, and not all places may accept cash. You will naturally be a bit stressed out if you’re traveling for the first time and you’ll deal with one less hassle.

Other than tickets, you should carry DSO’s (Designated School Official) contact information, housing agreement (if any), and contact number of any person at your intended university (could be a friend or a senior).

You should carry the following documents (not all of them are required, but recommended):

1. Passport
2. I-20
3. Tickets
4. Vaccine Certificates
5. Housing Agreement
6. DSO Contact Information
7. Admission Offer Letter
8. Undergraduate Academic Documents
9. High School Academic Documents

You will not have a cellular connection once you leave your home country. So, whenever you get a WiFi connection (mostly at the airport), try to pass an update about your whereabouts to anyone who will be meeting you at the airport. Even if you are not meeting someone at the airport, keep a senior or a friend updated. They will be able to reschedule any transportation in the unlikely situation that your flight gets delayed.

Spare Glasses

If you wear glasses, make sure to bring at least 4/5 pairs of glasses from Bangladesh. Glasses are pretty costly here. A pair of good glasses will cost you 200$ or more.

Baggage

Make sure your baggage fits within the permissible weight and dimension posted on the transportation carrier’s website. The last thing you want is scouring through your baggage at the airport.

To get an idea of what you can carry on your checked bags and carry-on luggage, you may visit the TSA website: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/all. They are also active on Facebook/Twitter should you have some questions that aren’t covered by the website.

Wrapping your baggage in plastic (a service usually provided at most airports with moderate cost) could be a helpful way to protect your baggage from damage. It could also act as a theft deterrent. Before wrapping, you could place both your source and destination contact information on a piece of paper. If you want your baggage to stand out, you can also tie a piece of colorful cloth to the baggage handles.

Two Factor Authentication (2FA)

If you use any application that requires two-factor authentication over SMS, remember to turn it off or switch it over to email TOTP (Time Based One Time Password).

Cloud Backup

You should keep a backup of your travel documents and other important documents on the cloud (e.g. Google Drive or Onedrive) and make sure you have offline access to them.

This concludes the series. I hope you enjoyed reading all 4 parts of the series. I wrote another extensive post on the post-arrival tasks. You can read it here.

My year-long admission journey would not have been possible without my family’s support. Juggling a full-time job and preparing for higher studies by giving standardized exams, writing SOP, and applying on time was nerve-wracking, to say the least. Especially, my wife was with me every step of the way. The admission process is not a sprint, but it’s a long and arduous marathon. Ensure that you have a support system that helps you to get back up when you’re feeling down. And trust me, you will feel down! Acknowledging it and planning upfront makes it far easier to deal with. Thank you for reading and I wish you all the best!