ED and I were doing a chat this morning with the Off Campus Housing Office - OCHO with some of our admitted international students. We do a couple of chats over the summer, to help students try to connect with the other departments on campus. It's a chance for some real-time Q&A, and a chance to put some personalities with offices. We'll be doing one jointly with the Center for International Education (CIE) in the not too distant future as well. (BTW, if anyone has any departments that they would really like to see a chat room with, leave a message here - we might be able to pull that sort of thing together. I may even get around to putting together something on SurveyMonkey.) Edit: I was feeling particularly industrious and put a really quick one together. It's here.
There are some common questions that come up from students in general about OCHO. I can't answer all of these questions, but I can at least try to point folks in the right directions.
First: How to find OCHO (on the web). Personally, I go to the Office and Services page from the SU homepage, and go to Off-Campus Housing from there.
Secondly: What does OCHO do? OCHO is all about helping you find the resources to find appropriate living arrangements for during your education. They have roommate boards (so you can find a roommate), and apartment listings. They can also help out with plain old regular advice (such as "you may not want to live in this neighborhood - it's kind of sketchy").
Thirdly: How do I use OCHO's services? From the OCHO landing page, you can visit the Forms section. In order to get access to OCHO's materials, you need to register with OCHO, and you'll need a password to get into their information. A packet is usually sent out the same day or next day (courier serviced) from when you register with them. Usually, the packet gets delivered in a couple of days. I know from experience in our office though that for some areas of the world, the courier service can take longer than a few days - some of our documents (like admit letters) were taking up to 3 weeks to parts of China. (The moral of the story is: if it's not to you in a week and you're abroad, don't panic. You can check in with them that it was sent, but it should be on the way.) The packet contains the directions you need to access the housing and roommate search.
Fourthly: Why use OCHO instead of Craigslist? You can certainly use Craigslist if you wish. The OCHO services can put you in touch specifically with other Suffolk students looking for roommates, which might be a bonus. Also, Boston is a town with a LOT of students...which, frankly, can encourage some less than ideal landlords. (I've seen some of the places landlords will try to pack students into - places that are not just dirty, but also places where the building is in poor repair, places with poor insulation (which can hurt your budget in the winter - a lot of buildings here are oil heat, and the prices are going up), places where you're in a bad neighborhood and don't know it. OCHO vets landlords, so you have a better idea of what sort of person you're renting from, and can give you advice about the neighborhood you're looking at. They can also be helpful in telling you whether a rent sounds...unusually high (or low).
Fifthly: Speaking of neighborhoods, where do you recommend? This morning, the OCHO folks were recommending Beacon Hill and the North End. Suffolk University is located IN Beacon Hill, so you can't get much more convenient to school. The North End is in walking distance, so again, getting to class is easy. Back Bay/Fenway is a little farther away, but not much. On the other hand, Suffolk University is also really quite close to 6 different T stations (The MBTA is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority...we refer to the subway system as "the T.") We're easy walking distance from stations that service all 4 lines of the subway. (To give you some idea, we're pretty much right on top of the line between Park Street and Government Center.) As a result, while the three neighborhoods I just listed are most convenient for students, we're accessible from all over the Boston area. Rent, like real estate, is all about location - so you may find less convenient but cheaper areas outside of the Beacon Hill area.
Sixthly: Where do I stay while I'm looking for a place? In August, there is some temporary housing available in the dorms through the Residence Life folks. We don't have any permanent graduate student housing in the dorms, but there is some available on a temporary basis. It's particularly helpful for those who are coming in for International Student Orientation (I'll talk about that later - maybe next week.) (Email or call the office directly.)
I think those were the major talking points from this morning. As always, if you have any questions, you can always contact either my office or the Off Campus Housing Office. Hopefully, for those of you coming to Boston for the fall, this is helpful!
