The Time Traveler's Accountant

Just got my first bill a few days ago. Advance rent for the 8 days in September. All quite reasonable, except for:

• The due date: four days from receiving it (10 days from the statement being sent).
• The ways I can pay: cheque by snail mail.

These two are obviously incompatible, unless they expect me to invent time travel in the next few days. Sent an email to see if I can handle this by internet banking, and got the reply: no problem, here are the bank details, and don't worry about the due date as long as we know that it's on its way. This seems to be a common theme: very strictly worded standard letters, sent by people who turn out to be quite reasonable and nice.

Of course this also means I finally know how much the rent actually is: a little over a hundred pounds per week. Still don't know which type of room, though this is consistent with both my first preference, as well as standard main building accomodation.

Paperwork part 4: oh the bureaucracy!

A lot happened in the last few months. I finished my Master's thesis around June 30. Apparently the date on my exam has nothing to do with receiving student benefits, as I can still be registered as a student. This means I could request my diploma. Also asked for a proof of having completed everything, and apparently lacking any official procedure for this, they wrote up a rather jumbled short letter on the spot. Luckily, this was sufficient proof, received the contract and returned it.

Also received several emails with a bunch of attachments, and some snail mail from my college. Information, notes, health warnings, various forms to be signed or places to register on arrival. Quite a few events for information or introduction, some mandatory, starting with
- September 30: Induction Sessions for new postgraduate international students.
and ending with
- October 17: Matriculation
With a whole bunch of events in between.

The sheer amount of documents suggests a huge bureaucracy, much more than I'm used to. Looking at the page for the MSc in CS (as I have to pick at least 4 courses) suggests the same. Just looking at the procedures outlined in the 'exam conventions': anonymized grading, regulators rescaling course results, meticulously outlined averaging procedures. Not claiming that this is a bad thing, but just struck by the huge disparity with my current university. The one thing that does seem strange is the 'no more than 32 units' clause: why should there be a limit to the amount of courses you follow? Oh well, not really relevant for me anyway.

Also looked for a bank account, some of my UK friends advised me to go with HSBC or NatWest, and after some google searches I decided to go with HSBC Passport for the first year.