Coming as a naive German to the US, I learned many things the hard way in the US. In order to help other equally silly fellows, I share some of my insights here.
General:
- Never buy something for a mail-in-rebate. Only one in three mail-in-rebate is paid out.
- Never hire a translater, you can always translate things yourself. If you need notarized translations, don't be scared. In the USA that means you go either to a bank or AAA and ask for the notary - its free or costs $10, and all he does is testify that you signed that you translated it truthfully yourself.
Administration:
- Never trust American administration! They are underpaid and overworked, thus constantly make mistakes.
- Be nice to them, they get the dark side of the American dream and can barely make ends meet. They juggle three jobs at a time and change jobs all the time - which sometimes results in a lack of expertise.
- Keep an electronic copy of all documents (especially for bad insurances), they loose these documents for sure at least once in a while.
- Ask for the administrator's name, then you can refer to these people. If somebody screws up, they usually blame you and make you pay unless you tell them a name.
Car Insurance: In order to get a US car insurance which is both reliable and cheap, you need to go to good companies (avoid SAFECO, PROGRESSIVE, fake insurances, etc). My suggestion is AAA - they are treating us foreigners as equals and are even considered the best insurance but the street-smarter Americans whom I have met (BTW, the AAA membership is quite helpful anyway). However, to drive the cost down, you will need:
- Your Driving Record (for Germans: get that from Bundeskraftfahrtsamt Flensburg)
- As most contries do not insure persons but only cars unlike the USA, you need to have (1) a letter from your parents that you used their car, (2) A letter from your insurance that the car had no accidents with you.
Health Insurance: Get a German health insurance unless your school offers one. DKV is known to be pretty good.
Car: A few car tricks are
- Buy when students leave (i.e., spring to summer)
- Never go to a car dealer for any oil change, they try steal from you - American car dealers can be gangsters. However, you might get lucky if your car still has warranty, then they steal from the manufacturer - they offered me a lot of "free" new things and I even got a free new motor paid by Toyota...
Driving license:
- Get your driving license the day after you arrive in the US. It's cheap (~ $12 in my time) and you need to have it ASAP for cheap insurance.
- Do the drivers license in one of the better neighbourhoods, its easier and faster there! (Santa Monica is better than LA or Compton; the American dream is always for the rich --- never the poor).
- In order to obtain it, first take the written test, then make an appointment for the driving one.
- For the driving test, rent a car with your European license such that you have a vehicle with insurance.
Medical Doctors: Always:
- go to the student health center first - as a student that is usually free.
- never go to a private dentist, all American dentists can be thieves and will try to sell you crowns when the tooth is in perfect shape (they wanted to crown eight of my teeth when I needed one plastic filling).
- check out the dental school and have an exam taken on you. You will hear what the students think and then what the professor says. If they do things on you, they do it really well.
- in general, be careful in US hospitals: the equipment is old and fragile at most places, they try to overcharge significantly and do the job badly. E.g., the appendicitis of my ex girl-friend was done unprofessionally (they cut open the complete belly where they knew that endoscopy would have sufficed for such a mild appendicitis), she had a giant scar there (her German doctor said that any local butcher could have done that better) and they tried to charge $30,000 to her insurance at a time when an the regular price of such operation was around $2000. Need to tell more? I have collected tons of such stories.
Banking:
- Get a Secured Credit Card, that allows you to obtain credit history which is necessary for all important transactions in American life.
- Be careful, they know how to invent fees in that countries. Call them, yell at them and you get the fees back.
Miles:
- get a frequent flier card with all three big groups - it will be worth your while once you complete your USA Ph.D.
German survival: German survival in the US is hard - after a few month you will be sick of Burgers & Fries. In LA, you can always live from great ethnic food ... but when it comes to cheese, chocolate and bread, the US in general is a developing country. The guide of survival are German Supermarket chains: Alpine Village, Oak Tree and Trader Joe's.