superbygk

Sorry, dunno what ssn stands for =), but there are furniture stores and things in town, and since it's a university town used furniture is in wide circulation. There isn't an IKEA in town, though; you'll have to go to Houston if you're into IKEA stuff. Like sylark said, there's a shuttle from CS to Houston, but that goes directly to the airports (Bush and Hobby); it's called Ground Shuttle. I am not aware of any bus that goes from College Station to downtown Houston or that vicinity; you'll need a car to do that. CS is overall a very safe campus. We do receive notifications of robberies and sexual assaults on females on campus perhaps several times a year, so please be careful and wary. If you're a male you're not likely to be assaulted, though of course you should always be aware and use caution. I don't feel unsafe when I'm walking to the bus or biking from campus to my place during the night. Areas with constant foot traffic are general safe even during the night (like near the bus stops, MSC, Rudder area); buses run until close to midnight so chances are there are always a few people around that area. Bryan has a reputation of being more sketchy than College Station, but the truth is, it all depends on the specific neighborhood. There are neighborhoods in CS that would make most people feel uncomfortable, and conversely there are neighborhoods in Bryan that are very safe. In my limited experience, the neighborhoods in Bryan close to Blinn (the community college in town) and the major intersections (Texas and Villa Maria) are quite safe, as well as some neighborhoods West of the train tracks. I've driven through other areas in Bryan which don't look sketchy at first glance either. The best thing to do is to make it down here to check it out if you are able. If you want to avoid areas heavily populated with undergrads, I'd avoid complexes near Northgate on University (it's the bar area where lots of undergrads and some grad students hang out); if you're several blocks to a mile or so away noise shouldn't be a big deal. Also, some apartment complexes on Southwest Parkway have lots of undergrads and can get noisy (I know because I live on that street and it has one of the highest concentration of students riding the bus to campus). Otherwise, it again depends on the neighborhood and sometimes even the street. I don't have a family so I'm not aware of specific apartment complexes conducive to families. Sorry!

HEB is the big chain grocery store, and there are several around so one should be close to you. It's the typical supermarket chain. Kroger is also another grocery chain. If you are looking for specific things, there's a pan-Asian market in south College Station called BCS market. If you're looking for organic foods, there's a place called the Village in Bryan. Bryan also has several Latin American supermarkets as well. In terms of biking, there are a few bike lanes designated in smaller streets. My route takes me through streets where the biking lane disappears, but these are generally not too busy, and there are enough bikers that drivers aren't jerks to you about riding; they'll just pass by you when they can. no biggie. One thing you should be aware of is that there are a lot of bikes on campus, so heavy traffic areas like the MSC, for instance, have few open bike racks during peak times. People sometimes keep their bikes in their offices if everybody is okay with it.

To respond to iit_chem and some other general inquiries... I'm finishing up my second year of PhD studies here at A&M. I found the place I'm living both through craigslist and aggiesearch.tamu.edu. aggies search, as one of the previous posters mentioned, is run by the university, so if you're a bit hesitant to look for apartments on craigslist, aggiesearch is a good resource. There are both complexes looking for lessees and students looking for roommates on the website, so you have options. I'm not an international student, but I'd still recommend living off campus if you're an international student. Chances are housing is much cheaper off campus, and you don't need to share bathrooms or things with undergrads living on-campus. Because this is a university town there are loads of housing options. I live just south of campus which is a heavily undergrad populated area, which isn't ideal for me. I plan to move to Bryan (neighboring city but pretty much CS), which is where more grad students tend to live. In terms of transportation, CS is not the most bike friendly city, but I do bike when the weather permits (I just take side roads to get to places). The bus system is pretty good, too, so you can totally get to campus using the A&M buses. Here's an overview of the bus routes: http://transport.tamu.edu/BusRoutes/ As you can see buses go quite far off campus, so you have transportation even if you don't have a car. There is one Indian restaurant in CS called Taz, which is pretty good. I'm not Indian so I can't gauge it's authenticity, but it's delicious to me =). Coming from Chicago I was pleasantly surprised at the number of good places to eat around here.

in

sriracha.

hey folks, i'm looking possibly to get a 1 bedroom apartment for the fall when i enroll at TAMU. can anyone weigh in on treehouse apartments? they seem to be a very affordable option for a graduate student, but i see that it got very negative reviews on apartmentratings and reviews compiled by google. would anyone recommend another affordable one bedroom place in the BCS area?

Hey @rockhopper and others it may concern, regarding looking for roommates and housing, I've been checking out aggiesearch the past couple of weeks, which apparently is a place where you can find rooms, apartments, and other folks looking for roommates. Folks who post are affiliated with TAMU and Blinn (students, alumni). It's a smaller network of people looking, but that might be a helpful place. I've looked into some leads there. Check it out: https://aggiesearch.tamu.edu/

south paw

Yep. Especially New College. That place looks seriously looks like Hogwarts castle. I took all my classes there. It was awesome.

so heard from USC today via post. got rejection. took them a while, but i'm getting closer to a decision now.

sweet tea

aside.

blerg. we'll see. i cannot help but wait for this notification before moving on to decision making. i saw two years ago in the results page that there was an acceptance in late March via post, so i am not ruling it out. because i know post has now gone out, i'll have to wait to hear from them. i also have a waitlist that i will follow up on if it starts getting close to the deadline.

jumping

Ah, Omnivore's Dilemma is a great book! I would also recommend In Defense of Food if you have not yet read that one (also by Pollan). If I were not perpetually a graduate student I could be a bit more mindful about the types of groceries I buy and food that I eat. Sadly, it's more expensive to eat healthy these days, a point Pollan made in the book as you know =) I'm almost through with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I started a book called Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss. It's basically a fun book for punctuation sticklers to indulge in. I teach a few courses at a local community college, and the shock that I get from the poor writing is matched by the twisted pleasure I derive from correcting students' writing. I also have the problem of buying books faster than I can read them. I had a conversation with a friend about this: he likes books, I like the idea of books. That's why I can't borrow a book from the library if I think I'm going to like it; I have to own a copy of it.