Columbia - TL;DR of Gyan Session 2015

Get DL from India. You can drive but accidents will cause you a lot of money. You can apply for the learner's permit, give the test, then give the driving test (for which you need to rent a car).
6 months free Amazon prime membership on your Columbia ID.
Get a dental checkup done before coming to US.
No need to get spices / specific food from India. Pressure cooker is available in Amazon but is expensive and can be carried from home.
Save the winter clothe shopping for NYC, Buy the rest from India.
During late August/early September, there is back to school sale from big stores including Best Buy, Target, Staples, etc. You will get discounts on many items from electonics, notebooks, bedding and stuff. It's ideal to buy laptop and other things during this time.

AT&T has the best connection, T-Mobile is the cheapest.
Its possible to get your phone from india and just get the sim here. Now you would need to get it under someone's family plan or data share plan.
There will be contract fees mentioned against all devices if you check online. For example for Iphone 6 it is $199. The contract is for 2 years. So before the 2 years are up, you cant change your device. If you are in the mobile share value/ family plan with someone already and are getting a discount then those discounts will cease for the duration of the contract and your monthly bill will increase by that much amount. (This was the case for ATT particularly, not sure about others, but this'll give you a fair idea). The upfront costs in this case are contract fee ($199 for iphone 6, for example) + $40 activation charge + tax on the actual device cost (approx $50 for a device of $600)

Mention "college tuition" while doing wire transfer from India.
For your immediate expenses, carry around $1000 in various denominations. Open a bank account as soon as you arrive and put everything you have in it. Dont keep any cash on you except for $100-150. Prefer using Citibank. You get a debit card on the day you open a bank account
Bank-to-bank transfer fee is 15$. Although that can be saved if you have an existing Citibank account in India.
Wire transfer takes 3 days to process, so you should have money with you for those days. Also opening an account may take 1-2 days.

Carry these docs to US (multiple copies preferably)

Grader TA pays $2500 per sem
MSTA pays $3000 total + tuition. Being a Grader TA is a pre-requisite.
Grader TA: Email the prof with CV / Resume and explain interest about the course.
Tracks can be changed later as long as you can meet the requirements.
General responsibilities of TA: grade assignments, proctor exams, hold office hours (2 hours compulsorily, every week). Manage Courseworks, Piazza.
Select more than 4 courses, so that you can drop extra later.
Take OS / PLT in diff sems so that you can manage the work load.
Take CV by Nayar at any cost.
No need to wait for Collins, NLP with Radev is great.
Stay away from big data analytics. on the other hand, cloud and big data is good for brownie points on cv.

Subway route from JFK to Columbia. Cab is ~63$, takes an hour. Shuttle is ~23, but takes >3 hours to get to your place if you are the last one to disembark. Refer to this as well.
Take a metrocard. needed for both bus and subway travel. Monthly pass for 110$ (unlimited rides) or 2.75$ per ride for subway.
Dining plan by CU is a tad bit expensive but can be useful during exam time.
For identification while travelling in NYC, dont carry passport and instead get a state id from the DMV website.

Prepare 1 page CV (letter size and not A4)
Update LinkedIn
Start CTCI (all interview questions will be from here). Leetcode OJ will be useful too.
Process starts as early as Oct / Nov and continues till March.
Carry resume with you at all times.

prakhar1989/gyansession.md