Welcome to Australian Graduate School of Management!

Some of you might be anxious with the idea of coming back to study, especially if you come from outside Sydney or have completed your previous degree a while ago. The school provides several documents/booklets containing basic information about studying and living in Sydney which can be found on the following links.

AGSM New Student Welcome Pack 2012
AGSM Accomodation Guide Booklet 2012

Accommodation

The biggest challenge you’ll face on your first week after arriving in Sydney is to find a permanent place to live which suits your taste and financial situation. The search may take more than a week! Therefore, it is recommended that the search starts as soon as possible (even before the study actually starts). The property demand in Sydney at the moment is rather high while the available supply is rather limited. Hence, the rental can be relatively expensive – sharing apartment unit/house or room (to a lesser extent) to save cost is recommended.

On-Campus Accommodation

There are several on-campus accommodation which are managed by the university. Information about these accommodation which are managed by the University of New South Wales (which AGSM is a part of) could be found in http://www.housing.unsw.edu.au/housing/. The offered choices vary from single to shared room. Because the available spots are pretty limited, if you are interested in getting this type of accommodation, you have to register as early as possible.

Off-Campus Accommodation

Off-campus accommodation are owned, managed and marketed by the owners or real estate agents. There are several types of off-campus accommodation:

• Room: the room can either be for your own use or shared with a friend, other rooms – such as the kitchen, bathroom and toilet – are shared with other people
• Flatette: normally this is a room with a kitchen inside, however bathroom and toilet are shared with other people
• Studio: a room with kitchen, bathroom and toilet inside
• Unit/Apartment: a unit may have a couple of bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and living room for your own use
• House

Information on off-campus accommodation could be found in Saturday’s edition of Sydney Morning Herald (local Sydney newspaper) or online through websites such as http://www.domain.com.au or http://www.realestate.com.au. You can also find similar information in real estate agencies near campus or notices posted on campus notice board or on the streets.

To rent a place, the most common procedure is to visit and inspect the place personally before renting it. Don’t hesitate to ask stuff you’d like to find out to the owner or real estate agents during the place inspection. It is recommended to even come up with a shortlist of questions before inspection so you won’t forget the important details. If the accommodation is offered through real estate agencies, it is normal to have the inspection scheduled on the weekends or prior arrangements. The inspection timing information is normally available in the advertisement. Otherwise, you could contact them via phone (recommended) or e-mail to arrange for an inspection.

It is highly recommended to stay as near as possible to the campus to enjoy the full experience as an MBA student.

Transportation

There are mainly four types of public transportation that you can take in Sydney – bus, train, ferry and taxi. Since 2009, the local authority has implemented prepaid (i.e. you are normally required to purchase a pass before getting on buses, trains and ferries) payment system for most of the public transportation. More information regarding the public transportation system and its ticketing system could be found in http://www.131500.com.au/ and http://www.cityrail.info/tickets/which/.

Bank

There are several banks available in campus (which are highly recommended for convenience reasons):

• Commonwealth Bank
• Branch and ATM: upper campus, near the Post Office (nearest to AGSM building)
• ATM: lower campus, Blockhouse
• ANZ
• Cashless branch and ATM: middle campus, Quandrangle Building, Lower Ground floor (next to the Bookshop)

Besides the 2 banks, another recommended bank is ING. ING currently allows you to open an account, which allows free (no fees) ATM withdrawals from any bank’s ATM for withdrawals more than AUD$200. For more information, please kindly refer here. (Lukasz Klenner – cohort of 2012)

Communication

For mobile phone contract, AMAYSIM is pretty good and pretty cheap for both pre-pay and pay as you go. Virgin Mobile is not bad too.