Newcomers

From TCS Group Internal Wiki

Revision as of 15:30, 4 April 2011

We describe some essential issues that newcomers might consider. Some information is only valid for PhD students. This page is under construction.

Housing

Housing is a difficult issue in Stockholm. To put yourself in the queue of the largest student accommodation company Stiftelsen Stockholms Studentbostäder. If you are not a PhD student, try Hairy Swede's advice.

Get your personal number

To be able to get your salary, open a bank account, register yourself to insurance companies and lots of other things you need to get a personal number or civic registration number or personnummer is Swedish. You don't exist without it. The personal number is given by the Skatteverket Swedish tax agency. For getting a person number, you need to go to one of the tax offices close to you.

Health Care and Social Insurance

• You have access to health care as soon as you have your personal number.

• You can find some brief information about social insurance in Sweden here.

• As soon as you receive your personal number, you should register to Försäkringskassan. You basically need to fill-in the registration form and attach the documents that are mentioned in Section 9 of the form and send all to Försäkringskassan. You need to live in Sweden for 6 months to get into Försäkringskassan, but it might take another few months to get you registered.

Get your Swedish ID card

You can find information for applying for Swedish ID card in tax office ID card section. It costs around 400 SEK and is quite quick if you are an EU citizen. Life is much easier with a Swedish ID, since some people will not like your passport and it's much easier to carry around.

Official Registration at KTH

New PhD students need to officially get registered at KTH. For PhD students officially employed by KTH, this process is simple and mostly handled by the students' supervisor. The students need only to provide some documents such as their Master degree and sign some forms and papers.

Computers and Resources

• Servers: there are several servers available in our department to be used. I will list some of the most important ones here.
  • u-shell (u-shell.csc.kth.se): runs Ubuntu and it's very usable.
  • my: is a SUN SPARC old and slow machine. But it is well enough for some basic every day usage, e.g., internet surfing, editing documents, etc. This server can be accessed by my.nada.kth.se address. You can easily SSH to this server and get into your home directory.
  • faun: is machine for everyday use as well. This server can be accessed by faun.nada.kth.se address. You can easily SSH to this server and get into your home directory.
  • tray: is an Intel machine. I guess it is supposed to be fast enough for most kind of computations and basic every day usage. This server can be accessed via tray.nada.kth.se address. By default you don't have access to this server, because it is not maintained any more but you can ask system group to give you an account in it.
  • rungner: is a SUN SPARC old and slow machine. But it is well enough for some basic every day usage, e.g., internet surfing, editing documents, etc. This server can be accessed by rungner.nada.kth.se address. By default new comers dont have access to this server, because it is not maintained any more.
• AFS: is the file system used in all servers in our department, therefore all information in all servers are automatically synchronized.
• Equipment: as an employee of our department you are supposed to have some working equipment. Some of them are listed here
  • Monitors (Screens): you can have a 24 inches LCD on your desk at your office. If you don't have it you can contact Torbjörn Granlund. He will help you to get one.
  • Nettops: we have some negotiations for getting some new nettops for every employee at our department. The latest news about these negotiations can be gained from Karl Palmskog.

Open a bank account

Opening a bank account demands primary that you already have a personal number. Once you have it, you can go to a bank office of your choice and open an account. The account taxes and required documentation to open it are dependent on the bank you chose. As a general rule, you should go to the bank office and bring your personal number, a letter from KTH declaring your income and an identification document (passport for foreigners). Moreover, most banks have special account and credit card taxes for students. So by the moment you are at the bank office, remember to state that you are a student.

Here are some suggestion of banks, agencies and account plans. Ask another students what they suggest, so you can make a conscious choice:

• Handelsbanken: its office is 200 metres from KTH on Vallhallavägen. Their internet banking is in English and you get a Maestro card for free.
• Nordea: they offer for students an account without fees, which provides a Visa Electron card. One possible agency is inside the Hötorget subway station. The handicap it that their website is in Swedish only, which may be a problem for new foreign students.
• SEB
• Swedbank

Access to facilities

Registration to students' union

The student's union in KTH is THS (Tekniska Högskolans Studentkår). Its head-office if located at Drottning Kristinas väg 15.

Since the autumn of 2011, the registration to the Student’s union is optional. You will get a Mecenat Card (student card) from KTH even if you don't join THS. This card suffices to prove that you are a student (e.g, in one of the SL random checks on the subway) and you will be eligible to all benefits listed in Mecenat' s website [1].

Although it's optional to join the student's union, it is mandatory if you want to stay on the SSSB queue (see Housing). Moreover, you will eligible to some extra benefits, such as use THS facilities, discounts, free entrance to some events, or either be able to join some of the non-free events, such as trips. To join THS you have to pay their annual fee, either on-line or at office in KTH campus. For more information, see THS's website[2]. If you decided to join the student's union you will receive a second student card, which completely replace the previous Mecenat one.

Setting up your homepage

It is important for every employee to have a homepage and we strongly recommend to newcomers to set up their homepages as soon as possible. For setting up your homepage you need to follow the steps below.

• connect to one of the servers in our department (for example by SSH)
• make "public_html" directory in your home directory by ~> mkdir public_html
• give your public_html directory the read permission for our webserver, if you dont know how to it, just type in the following command when you are in your home directory. ~> fs sa -dir public_html wwwservice r
• place an index.html file or index.php file containing the layout of your homepage in public_html directory.

Then, you homepage can be accessed by www.csc.kth.se/~<yourUsername>.

If you find it too difficult to do all above, let Siavash Soleimanifard know and he will help you with this.

Mailinglists

You should be registered in mailinglists tcs-staff and tcs-seminar, both @csc.kth.se. Tell Torbjörn to add you.

If you are a PhD student, you should be registered to doktorander@csc.kth.se as well. Tell Jon Häggblad <jonhagg@csc.kth.se> to add you. Also, register for the THS PhD student mailinglist at [3].

Study Plan and selection of classes to attend to

See [Course lists| course lists].

Swedish course

There are different Swedish courses given by different organizations. Here you can find a short list of those. But for registration and more information you should visit their website.

• Courses at KTH for employees. These courses take place once a week and are quite slow. But they are a good start.

• SFI is one of the organizations that provide FREE Swedish language courses. To register you need to pass a placement test which is taken in one of the SFI branches and then specify which branch you want to take you classes in. One of the branches close to KTH main campus in ABF branch which is very close to Rådmansgatan metro station.

• THE UNIT FOR LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION at KTH is also providing some Swedish courses (also courses for some other languages as well). These courses are FREE but you need to register in advance.

• Folkuniversitetet is offering some Swedish courses as well but it is NOT FREE. For the information about the registration you need to visit their website.