Finding a place to live….. again

Like most other people who moved to Boston for LGO Kerin and I spent a frantic weekend back in April looking for somewhere to live for at least one and possibly two years during the program.  After looking at about seven places in different neighborhoods we found one we liked and made arrangements to move in on June 1st.  We’ve been here three months and were starting to get comfortable when we found out that our landlord is selling the property to someone who wants to turn the building into condos.  This means we have to move…again.

On the bright side we have more time to figure out what we want.  In case you’re ever in a similar situation here’s our general thoughts on areas to live while attending MIT:

In our situation (married, no kids, dog, Kerin working in downtown Boston) it makes sense for us to stay on the red line.  There are also other possibilities using buses or driving in and out of the city, but the subway line is very convenient and makes it possible not to bring a car to the city.  There are very distinct neighborhoods around each subway stop with different average rent prices, night life, and general feel.

Sorted starting furthest from MIT

Alewife – This stop is right at the edge of the Cambridge city limits and includes a fairly large parking garage for commuters.  It is possible to walk to this stop from certain parts of Arlington.  There isn’t too much in terms of nightlife around Alewife, but there are some nice parks and recreational sites.  It is possible to find a decent sized (2 bedroom, 1 bath, 1000 sqft) apartment for around $1600 here.  Commuting time from Alewife to MIT is about twenty minutes on the train plus the walk to the station on each side. 

Davis – The Davis T stop is in the city of Somerville.  It’s a pretty cool area near Tufts University with bars, restaurants, a movie theater and other night life.  There are about five LGOs living in Davis from the 2011 class.  It would be easy to find a 2 bed, 1 bath, 1000 sqft apartment in Davis with a parking spot for between $1600 - $1800.  Davis is also a good option if someone in the family will need to commute out of the city for work as you can get to both 93 route 2 quickly.  The subway ride from Davis to MIT is about 15 to 17 minutes.

Porter – There is less nightlife in Porter than Davis, but Porter has a little bit more of a family neighborhood feel.  There are a lot of parks in the area especially to the west of the subway stop.  A handful of bars and restaurants on Mass Ave near the main square are good but can also get old.  Porter has a couple of great advantages over other neighborhoods, a good supermarket right next to the subway station and when it gets boring it’s only a 12 minute walk to Davis Square and a 20 minute walk to Harvard Square.  A comparable sized apartment in Porter will run about $1700 - $1900 and it’s a 12 minute subway ride to campus. 

Harvard – Harvard is an interesting place.  It’s one of the more famous spots in Boston and as such is normally packed with tourists.  There are some cool bars, restaurants, and shops but you’ll also pay a premium to live in the area and parking will cost extra.  A 2 bed, 1 bath, 700 sqft apartment in Harvard will start at about $2000 and a parking spot could be another $150 per month.  Unless you’re planning to take a lot of classes at Harvard or absolutely want to have the experience of living there it’s probably better to leave in one of the other neighborhoods and visit when you get the urge.  The subway ride from here to MIT is about 10 minutes

Central – Central has a lot to offer with bars and restaurants spread up and down Mass Ave.  It doesn’t have as many trees or parks as further up the red line, but you can walk to the west side of MIT campus (gym and athletic fields) from here in about 15 minutes.  You can find a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 800 sqft apartment for $1600 - $1800.  Central seems to be the most popular spot for people in LGO who don’t want to live on campus.  It’s only about a 7 minute ride to campus from here.

Kendall – This is the stop right at MIT campus and is only a couple hundred yards from the Sloan buildings and the building with the LGO office.  There is some off campus housing here but most of it is in high rise apartment complexes.  Rent tends to be a little more expensive here and it’s also harder to find places that will take pets.  A 1 bedroom, 1 bath with 600 sqft can run close to $2000.  MIT has a number of good options for grad students although they don’t take pets and many of the buildings are on the opposite side of campus. 

Mass General Hospital (MGH) – This stop is across the Charles River from Cambridge in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston.  It’s a great spot to be in if you don’t need a lot of space and want to be close to downtown.  It’s also near a bar that many Sloan students visit on a weekly basis, Beacon Hill Pub.  A 1 bed, 1 bath, 600 sqft place here can be $2000+.  It’s a five minute subway ride to campus and only about a 20 minute walk across the Longfellow Bridge with one of the best views of the Boston skyline in the city.  It’s also close to the hatch shell, a famous outdoor venue on the banks of the Charles River that hosts frequent free concerts.   

There are many other stops further down the red line and other great possibilities for places to live while in LGO, but these are the areas that Kerin and I have looked at.  We’re still looking at the moment, but we’ll probably end up either staying in Porter or moving to Davis or Central.  We have a couple more weeks to decide but we’re planning to move as soon as possible so I can get back to focusing on school work football.       

Sloan orientation and fall semester

Sloan orientation wrapped up last night after 4 days of informative lectures, meeting a new team, and a number of social events.  The class is split up into six different cohorts which are given ocean names and take core classes together.  I’m in the Indian Ocean.  Each ocean then has teams of six or seven that do group projects together similar to our LGO summer teams.

For the fall I will be taking five classes for my MBA, two engineering electives, and two courses as part of the LGO curriculum.  I will also continue to participate on committees and possibly join some Sloan clubs.  It will be a very busy semester. 

To add to the fun Kerin and I found our recently that we will need to move again.  We currently live in a three family in Cambridge but the owners are selling it to someone who wants to convert the building into stand alone condos.  That means he needs to do some significant renovations and we’ll have to find a new place to live.  Luckily we kept all of our boxes and we have a lot of experience packing. 

Summer break

One of the great things about being back in college is getting more time off.  Summer classes ended on August 18th and we don’t have to go back until Sloan orientation starts on the 31st. 

It’s nice to have some time to unwind after the busy summer and Kerin and I have taken the opportunity to do some local touristy stuff.  Yesterday we spent some time exploring the bike path that runs through Somerville (the town next to Cambridge).  Today we walked the Freedom Trail, a Boston tourist must see.  Later this week we plan to visit Newport, Rhode Island.  We’ve been there before but it’s a really cool place to visit.  I especially like the cliff walk, a three mile trail along the ocean with views of some incredible mansions.  Next weekend we’re going up to Sebago Lake in Maine.  A benefit of living in New England is being less than a two hour drive from so many interesting places.

Sloan orientation starts a week from Monday and runs for four days.  We get a long weekend for Labor Day and start class on Wednesday September 9th.  I’m taking seven classes in the Fall so I’ll be busy, but I’ll find time to update the blog. 

Committees

I don’t know how to say this, but committees in LGO are kind of a big deal.

Students in the program are able to influence decisions, shape curriculum, and create change through a variety of committees.  Committees cover topics like new partner company recruiting, social events, leadership,  annual plant trek, and others.  I joined three committees this summer and will give you a general idea about what each of them do:

Leadership – Responsible for a variety of tasks and events relating to the development of leadership skills for the class.  This summer our committee planned the Leadership Reaction Course event, provided advisors to summer teams to improve team skills, and will lead a leadership lab activity next week.  Leadership lab is an opportunity for members of the class to talk about specific experiences in order to teach their peers.  Our session next week will be a discussion of working in union environments.  The members of our class that have worked with unions will answer the questions of those who haven’t.

Professional Seminar – This committee organizes speakers to come to campus and speak to our class.  We look for leaders of various organizations to give us their perspective  and share their experience.  In the next few months we will have a CEO,  a school administrator,  a variety of business leaders, political figures, and others share their message with us. 

Internship – Work with partner companies to identify internships for the class.  This summer we created a survey to poll the class on the types of jobs, locations, and industries we’re interested to work in.  Over the next several months we will work with the partner companies to align their needs with our skills and interests, hopefully resulting in internships that are meaningful and impactful. 

There are many other committees that others in my class are running.  It’s a great way for us to improve the program and give something back.

Meet my summer team

To give you an idea of the people in LGO here’s a brief bio for my summer teammates:

• Manuel – Graduated from Rice University in 2004 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  He worked for Shell Oil in Houston, TX for five years before coming to LGO. 
• Asvin – Came to Boston from Florida where he was working for a strategy consultant.  He also worked for Anheuser Busch for three years.  Asvin has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Florida.  He hopes to work in product strategy after graduation and is especially interested in the medical device industry.
• Steve Wessels – Prior to LGO Steve was working for UPS and living in San Diego, you can read all about him on his blog. 
• Natallia – Is a Nuclear Engineer originally from Belarus.  She was working for GE in their Global Nuclear Fuel division before starting LGO.  After the program Natallia wants to return to the nuclear industry in a project management role. 
• Emily- Was living in Boston prior to the program and had been working for Osram Sylvania since 2005.  She has a Chemical Engineering degree from Bucknell and her hometown is Greensboro, NC.  

Here’s my team during a bonding experience at Outward Bound.

Crunch time

We have less than two weeks to go in the summer semester so things are officially ‘hectic’.  I can’t believe the time has passed so quickly.  It seems like only days since I dusted off my Voltron trapper keeper and my Scooby Doo lunch box and went to my first day of class.  Fast forward eight weeks and this is what’s left for final projects:

• A final systems optimization project including a ten page paper and fifteen minute presentation.
• An operations management presentation based on the experience of one of my team members.  We have to evaluate the scenario on leadership, business process, and feedback mechanism.
• A competition for our statistics class where teams of students have to use design of experiments methods to maximize the hang time and landing accuracy of a paper helicopter. 
• A final exam for statistics class.
• A final team evaluation paper for the performance of our summer team.
• A final process improvement assignment for high velocity organizations class where I have to evaluate a situation at my prior place of work and determine how it could be improved.

That all wraps up on August 18th and you can be sure our class will have some steam to let off.  I’m looking forward to the party but until then I will be finding out how much sleep I really need to function.  If my next blog post includes something like “ahdf;ldsajlfkdasdfhioew” you’ll know I passed out and my head landed on the keyboard.

The social stuff

LGO is not all work, we get to have a good time too.  As part of our summer bonding we have thrown a number of happy hours, picnics, parties, and other excuses to forget about homework. 

Boston and Cambridge both have some great bars and with most of us living in the city getting together after class or on the weekends is easy.  None of the social events are required and people go to the ones they can make. 

Cool things we’ve done this summer:

• Watched the 4th of July fireworks at the MIT sailing pavilion on the river. 
• Small groups of people took weekend trips to New York City and Cape Cod, and other New England spots
• Celebrated a number of birthdays in many different ways
• A handful of Saturday picnics (there’s one today)
• Happy hours with our class, and mixers with people in the SDM program, and people in the MBA program
• Free concerts at the hatch shell on the river
• Variety of different “theme” parties
• Lots of other stuff I’m forgetting

Taking the time to hang out outside of class has helped us get to know each other and keep our sanity.