What's CSAIL?
Where's my desk? How do I get into my area?
When is the building open?
What about parking? Other transportation?
What's my mail address here on campus?
What's my office phone number? How do I make a call?
How to I apply for a CSAIL computer account?
I'm an international student. Are there any additional procedures that I need to follow?
I have a fellowship or have an appointment as a research assistant (RA) or teaching assistant (TA). How do I get paid?
The MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL, was formed on July 1st, 2003 by the merger of the Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Laboratory for Computer Science, each with four decades of rich history. In so doing, the merger created the largest interdepartmental laboratory on campus-CSAIL is a vibrant community of over 1000 members, including 500 graduate students and postdocs and 122 faculty representing 11 academic departments.
Independent of CSAIL, the Lab you belong to, you are also likely a graduate student in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS, Course 6), usually in Area 2 (Computer Science), although a few of you are students from other EECS areas and academic departments. The Department deals with the academic side of your career (courses, graduation requirements, etc.) while the Lab deals with the various research programs where you will do your thesis work.
Where's my desk? How do I get into my area?
CSAIL is located in MIT building number 32, the Ray and Maria Stata Center. As you may imagine with a building like this, the layouts of the offices and neighborhoods vary greatly from floor to floor and tower to tower. Maps are located on each floor by the elevators. Some areas of CSAIL require only prox card access and others may require card and key access.
You will be given access to CSAIL's prox card doors after you pick up your MIT ID and fill out the necessary forms. The CSAIL HR team (csail-hr@mit.edu) will activate your ID for you.
You may also need a physical key to your office. After you have set up a CSAIL user account, your PI or administrative assistant can send the key request to keys@csail.mit.edu.
The Stata Center is open to the public during regular business hours, which are Monday through Friday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. You will need your MIT ID to access the Stata Center at all other times.
You will also need your CSAIL prox card for internal access, which includes doors leading into office space, from the fire stairwells and elevator lobby doors, and many neighborhood doors. Other doors with regular key locks are also locked in the evening. In most cases, restrooms are outside the neighborhood areas, so don't forget to carry your keys and ID card after hours!
What about parking? Other transportation?
Unfortunately, Stata garage parking spaces are not available. Please contact the MIT parking office (x8-6510, mitparking@mit.edu), if you have any special parking needs.
Our building is located two blocks from the Kendall Square subway stop (on the MBTA Red Line). Just follow Main Street northwest from the T stop and we're on the corner of Vassar and Main Street on your left. The MBTA also runs buses that stop on Massachusetts Ave in front of the main MIT entrance, again just a short walk from our building. For more information go to http://www.mbta.com/ and http://www.csail.mit.edu/contactus.
There are covered bike racks near the G-side entrance, the D-side entrance, and in the back by the pool entrance, and uncovered spaces near the Vassar and Main corner. Additionally there is a rack in the Stata Center basement hallway. Take the elevator next to the Fitness Center to find it. Note that a good lock is essential. Also there is a bicycle repair stand and a set of tools in the machine shop and friendly cyclists around the lab that are happy to teach a few basic repairs. Please join the Cyclists mailing list to get updates about cycling issues and cycling-related events.
What's my mail address here on campus?
Your US mail address is:
MIT - Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
The Stata Center, Building 32-xxx (room number)
32 Vassar Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
For campus mail, your address is: 32-xxx (replace "xxx" with your room number). Second and third floor residents have a three-digit room number. Those in upper floors are where the towers are separated, so they have a G (Gates) or D (Dreyfoos) preceding their office number (ex. 32-Gxxx or 32-Dxxx).
Mail (including packages) sent to these addresses is delivered outside your door, usually once every weekday. If you have questions about packages or deliveries, email ops@csail.mit.edu.
How do I apply for a CSAIL computer account?
Labwide computing and network resources are managed by the infrastructure group, also known as "TIG" which is located on the second floor of the Stata Center, near room 268. They consist of senior network and systems architects, system administrators, and technical support personnel, and provide a variety of lab-wide infrastructure services like email, spam filtering, web servers, database servers, and file storage.
You can get started on your CSAIL computing by going to the TIG website (https://tig.csail.mit.edu/getting-started). Once your supervisor approves your account, you'll be able to log into any CSAIL workstation that uses our centralized authentication, and you can apply for a variety of services using your new credentials.
In general, if you have questions about how to use or gain access to computing resources here at CSAIL, just send email to help@csail.mit.edu.
I'm an international student. Are there any additional procedures that I need to follow?
Yes, you MUST check in with the International Students Office (ISO) within 30 days of your arrival (but it's best to do this within your first few days here). The ISO is located in building 5, room 133 and their website is http://web.mit.edu/iso.
All international students are required by immigration law to go through an immigration session with the ISO upon arrival to MIT. During this immigration session, an ISO advisor will discuss immigration documents, how to maintain legal status, employment in the US, travel, and other miscellaneous important information. The ISO is the best place to go for specific immigration advice and to make sure that you are maintaining your status. You may need verification of enrollment or employment in order to get a social security number, or to extend your I-20 in the future. If you need a letter verifying employment, enrollment or student status, please see Janet Fischer in EECS department, jfischer@mit.edu.
I have a fellowship or have an appointment as a research assistant (RA) or teaching assistant (TA). How do I get paid?
In order to be paid, you will need to fill out the necessary paperwork in the EECS department office. Students with a fellowship, RA, TA or RA supplement appointment will receive monthly paychecks via direct deposit on the last working day of each month for the month's work just completed. To set up direct deposit you can visit https://atlas.mit.edu and click on the "Direct Deposit" link. You can also submit your tax withholding information through this site.
If you have question or concerns about your funding, please see the following people:
Research Assistant Appointments (RA)
CSAIL HR, csail-hr@mit.edu
Teaching Assistants (TA) Lisa Bella, 38-475, isabell@mit.edu
Fellowships
Liza Ruano, 38-444, lmruano@mit.edu