Newcomers

From TCS Group Internal Wiki

Revision as of 11:07, 23 March 2011

Here we will describe some essencial issues that new comers to our department may need to consider. This page is under construction. So please let me know if you think some information should be added to this page or removed.

Housing

Housing is an important issue in Stockholm. To put yourself in the queue of the largest student accommodation company Stiftelsen Stockholms Studentbostäder.

Get your person number

To be able to get your salary, opening a bank account, registering yourself in insurance companies and lots of other things you need to get a number so called person number or civic registration number or personnummer is Swedish. The person number is given by the Skatteverket Swedish tax agency (tax office). For getting a person number, you need to go to one of the tax offices close to your place.

Health Care

As soon as you receive your person number, you should register for health care which is via 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. The registration process might take 2-6 months.

Get your Swedish ID card

You can find the information for applying for Swedish ID card in tax office ID card section.

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 serveres available in our department to be used. I will list some of the most important ones here.
  • 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 dont 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.
• Equipments: as an employee of our department you are supposed to have some working equipments. 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 on.
  • 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 in hands. Once you have it, you can go to the bank agency of your choice and open an account. The account taxes and required documentation to open it are dependent on the bank you chose. By as a general rule, you should go to the bank agency bringing your personal number, a letter from KTH declaring your income and identification document (passport to foreigners). Moreover, most banks have special account and credit card taxes for students. So by the moment you are at the bank agency, 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:

• Nordea[1]: 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[2]
• Swedebank[3]

Access to facilities

Registration to student's 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 [4].

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[5]. 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 new comers to set their homepages up 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 as 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.

Study Plan and selection of classes to attend to

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.

• 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.