Postdoctoral FAQs
Moving to the D.C. Area
The D.C. area is full of fun places to visit.
The Smithsonian Institution is one example. It has more than 20 museums—most of which are free. One favorite is the Air and Space Museum. Other favorites are the National Gallery of Art and American Museum of Natural History.
If you are not into museums, how about walking around Georgetown, or hanging out in Dupont Circle or Adams Morgan. Hop on the metro and check out the Eastern Market, located in the heart of the historic Capitol Hill neighborhood, or take a hike in the nearby Rock Creek Park.
For the Performing Arts, visit the Kennedy Center, which overlooks the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Another such venue is Strathmore Hall, located nearby in Maryland (take the Red Line to the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station). You can also enjoy live music at the 9:30 Club on 815 V Street, N.W.
For an outdoor venue, try Wolf Trap, America’s National Park for the Performing Arts.
Circuit Tour
Physicist Paul Halpern put together an interesting “circuit tour" of significant sites in the history of physics in Washington, DC. The tour starts on the Mall and includes places like the Smithsonian, National Academy of Sciences, GWU, Georgetown, and Carnegie, finally ending up at the AIP American Center for Physics (metro-accessible) in College Park. Biographical sketches are interspersed throughout. A copy of his guidebook is available in BBR’s Reading Room. (Courtesy BBR librarian Shaun Hardy)
There is not a cafeteria on campus, but there are plenty of local offerings within walking distance. Complimentary coffee and tea are provided on-site. Many people opt to bring lunch or participate in Lunch Club.
Restaurants and coffee shops within walking distance
- The Avenue
- Blue 44
- Bread & Chocolate
- Broad Branch Market
- Buck's Fishing & Camping
- Comet Ping Pong
- I'm Eddie Cano
- Jettie's
- Little Beast Bistro
- Little Red Fox
- Magruders
- Macon Bistro and Larder
- Muchas Gracias
- Parthenon Restaurant
- Politics and Prose Bookstore
- Starbucks
- Sugar Fox
Lunch Club
Since 1947, we’ve shared home-cooked meals right here on our campus! The Lunch Club meets every day in the Merle Tuve Room (dining hall) of the Greenewalt Building at 12:30 pm for a lunch cooked by one of the members. Lunch Club is paused for COVID.
Join lunch clubDeciding Not to Live at the Train Station
Settling on where to live is a personal choice, but some questions to ask include:
- How much do you want to pay?
- D.C. is known for high rent—a general rule of thumb is the closer to the metro and downtown you go, the higher the rent. In 2022, the average price for a 1-bedroom apartment in Chevy Chase, DC is $1,825. In Dupont Circle, that price jumps to $2,500.
- Cost of living reference
- What kind of accommodation do you want?
- Do you want to share space with a roommate? Many individuals in the DC area live with roommates to keep rent costs low.
- Will a studio/efficiency be enough space?
- Are you looking for a one-bedroom apartment, or something larger?
- What do you want your commute to look like?
- Do you want to live close to campus?
- Are you happy to take the bus?
- Do you want to commute from downtown D.C.?
- Want to live outside of DC in Maryland?
- Somewhere in-between?
- What neighborhood amenities are important to you?
- Do you want a nearby Metro station? A supermarket? Access to green space? A climbing gym? Nice restaurants?
- Do you want a nearby Metro station? A supermarket? Access to green space? A climbing gym? Nice restaurants?
- What apartment amenities are important to you?
- Do you want to have a washer/dryer in your apartment? Must the apartment block feature a rooftop pool? Do you need a concierge to receive packages for you?
Where to start?
There are myriad websites with which you can start to address these questions and ultimately find somewhere to live, including apartments.com, craigslist.com, and zillow.com. Realistically, your final choice of an apartment will reflect a compromise of all of these questions.
The first, how much you’ll want to pay, is perhaps the most important and is at least partly a function of how much your take-home pay will be each month. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to pay less than 30% of your pre-tax income on housing. However, many in the DC area pay far more than that.
When it comes to moving into your chosen apartment, ask what payments you’ll need to provide up front. Requirements vary from place to place, but it’s not uncommon to have to pay a security deposit (typically one month’s rent) in addition to your first monthly rent payment, while those apartment complexes that have amenities such as fitness centers, communal gardens, or pools, often levy an additional, though once-off, “amenities fee” on top of other payments. So before moving in, you may have to shell out up to $3,000.
The good news is that many management companies waive some or all of the additional fees, depending on the time of year you move in, and the availability of apartments in their building, so it could well work out quite a bit cheaper.
ApartmentList (approved by the U.S. Department of State, under housing) provides a free rental search service that can be of help when searching for a place to live. Click here if you are interested in the Van Ness/Connecticut Avenue area.
The Earth and Planets Laboratory is located on the Broad Branch Road campus in Chevy Chase, DC.
Housing resource list
EPL maintains a housing resource list of friends of EPL who often house postdocs, please reach out to anyone in admin for more information.
Walking: Most postdocs choose to live within walking distance in Northwest, D.C., on or near Connecticut Avenue in the Van Ness/Chevy Chase, D.C.
Metro: There is no obvious metro stop within walking distance, but the Van Ness and Friendship Heights metros are the closest. The campus is serviced by several bus lines, including the E4, M4, and L2.
Driving: There is plenty of parking on campus, so driving is a great way to get to work.
Scooting or biking: DC is serviced by several bike and scooter share programs, including Capital Bikeshare which may help you on that last mile from the metro to campus if you decided to live closer to the city center.
Helpful hints regarding visas and obtaining a Social Security number can be found online at the Social Security website. Lots of helpful benefit information can be found on our Human Resources page.
Taxes
Please note, this is not tax advice. This page has NOT been prepared by a CPA or tax professional.
Here are some useful resources for preparing your taxes.
- National Postdoctoral Association's "Overiew of Tax Issues for Postdocs"
- Science's "Postdocs and the Law, Part 3—Are Postdocs Employees?"
- NSF AAPF's "Taxes"
- IRS website
J1 Exchange Visitors:
For visa information, visit https://hr.carnegiescience.edu/visitors/overview. This page includes everything you need to know about the J1 Visa process including applications and how enter/re-enter the U.S. after you have your J1 Visa in hand.
You can also find the most up-to-date resources on Travel.State.Gov, which is a service of the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Fiscal Office Reminder
Visas holders be aware that when planning on leaving the U.S. on business or vacation that your DS-2019 needs to have the Travel Validation section current by having Carnegie’s responsible official’s signature in place before departing. Otherwise, there may be problems when attempting to re-enter the U.S