As the next cohort of newly minted assistant professors draft plans to uproot their lives (yet again) to a distant land, I hope to shed some lights on this opaque and intentionally difficult process. I suppose my own journey was unique, but then again, by the point a person becomes a faculty member, their journeys are probably no less unique. What follows are the experiences of a Chinese-born Canadian national emigrating to the US from Switzerland, to take up a post in a publicly funded institution of higher learning.
As I was going through (a couple of years ago), I noticed that somehow, even when everyone had to go through the exact same thing, no one bothered to write them down. So I started to write them down. There were a lot of things that needed to be done. These were not really hard things, but the bureaucracy made them difficult. This difficulty increased exponentially as 1) I wasn’t physically in the US, and 2) covid was raging on.
As I was going through this process, I realized that my situation was unique. Most academics by this point have already had US-based something. As such, none of the staff members in my department knew anything about what I needed to do.
Cash reserve One advice is to have a boat load of cash reserve. I am not being flippant about this, and I know amassing about 20k is not easy by any means but that was approximately how much I spent. Much of it I eventually recuperated but life would have been much harder without the ability to pay for things myself and get reimbursed later.
Moving + cleaning the old apartment cost about $8,000. The plane ticket and the airbnb stay for 2 weeks cost about $2,000. The initial deposit for an apartment cost 2 months rent (since I didn’t have a SSN number), which was $4,000 (including utilities and so on). Rest of the fund was spent on 1) renting a car for a month, 2) down payment of my own car, 3) furnishing my apartment and my office, 4) buying lab supplies to do the first experiments for the projects I was still involved with, and 5) miscellaneous things. I was fortunate that the Swiss government returned all my retirement funds when I notified them that I was leaving the country. They couldn’t wait to get rid of me!
Moving The moving companies recommended by my university (UH) did not know how to move internationally. The moving company I hired in Switzerland (where I did my post-doc) could not figure out how to fill out the byzantine “foreign vendor” forms of the US. I ended up paying the entire moving cost myself. When I eventually got the money back, it was taxed heavily as added income. This was eventually returned in the next tax cycle. The movers were quite professional. As they were a Swiss company, they contracted a US counter-part to move the stuff from some container ships to my new flat about 3 months later.
Getting paid As a foreign person, it was difficult to get my pay directly transferred to my bank account since I did not have a US-based bank account. They offered to cut me a cheque (fun fact, cheques are not a thing in Europe anymore) that I cannot actually deposit without a US bank account. My workaround, and this is pretty cool, was to get an international bank account (Wise). Such an account gives me an American bank branch address along with the routing number and account number for ACH. I am still using Wise as my bank account, and I did not intend to change that. Update, I had to get a Chase account because I could not deposit cash to Wise.
Cellphone This was not too difficult. I got my plan from Mint, they deliver e-sims so it took 5 minutes to get it activated on my phone.
Tax exemption This should apply to everything we order for work, from anywhere / anyone in Texas. I asked the finance department for a tax exempt notice, and I brought the notice with me everytime I bought anything for work, either physically in a shop, or online. Major retailers (Bestbuy, Home Depot and Amazon) had a system which allowed me to upload the form and get a tax exemption ID that I can tell the cashiers. Apple looked at my exemption form and removed the tax. Professional online stores expect such a form. Amazon had a portal where I could upload the form, and it took about 3 days for them to verify. If by some reason a retailer refuse to remove the tax, document this and then the accounting department will reimburse the full amount. Failure to show this documentation and I would have to pay the tax myself.
Getting SSN number This was one of the most headachy process I have ever gone through. Compounded by COVID, and the process made me want to quit before I was 2 months in. To compound the pain, I was informed that I couldn’t be paid without a SSN. This turned out not to be true.
Entering the country With a Canadian passport, the I-797 was sufficient for entry. Photocopies of the I-797 along with the I-94 (which I print out from the website) was sufficient for re-entry. Note, as a Canadian, no visa is needed.
Apartment Without an SSN number or credit history, I was asked to pay 2 months rent as a deposit that I will get back at the end of my tenancy. To pay the deposit, I needed to enable ACH transfer from Wise, so they deposited two small amounts (less than a dollar) to my account to verify that it was indeed my account. Then I could just authorize them to take the money.
Renter insurance This came with the apartment (minimum 300k). I paid about 15 a month for it. I was automatically enrolled.
Electricity This needed to be ordered separately, and was around 10c per kWh. Fix rate was necessary in case a vast over-demand occurs (for example, during a storm).
Driver’s license A Texas driver’s license was trivial to get as I had a Canadian driver’s license. No tests were needed, I just had to pay a small fee and received the temporary license immediately. They officially took away my Canadian license, but I ordered a replacement right away. Now I have driver’s licenses from three countries.
Getting a car The car market was very strange back in those days. In Houston, I needed a car to get just about anywhere. The online shops such as Carmax and Carvana wouldn’t sell a car to me without a Texas driver’s license, and I couldn’t get a license without a Social Security Number.
Staying Afloat 