A photograph of the Manhattan skyline from Gantry Plaza State Park

View of the Manhattan skyline from Gantry Plaza State Park

Another year has come and gone. It’s a strange feeling knowing that I’ll soon be in my third year at Waterloo; it really does feel like just yesterday that I was a timid first-year stepping into MC for the very first time…

Before time gets the better of me, I want to stop and reflect a bit on this summer, which was a memorable one indeed: my first time in NYC, and my first extended stay in the United States. I hope to be back someday! In the process, I’ll record some notes about interning in the US and at Bloomberg (potentially of use to other Waterloo folks.)

I am not sponsored by any of the services/apps I mention in this blog.

Pre-arrival

I received my Bloomberg job offer mid-February (having applied through WaterlooWorks.) Shortly thereafter I submitted my J1 visa application via Cultural Vistas, and was approved and received all my documents in early April. The process was more straightforward than I imagined and Bloomberg handled all the fees involved.

Below are some more logistics notes.

  • Banking. Prior to leaving, I set up an account with Wise, which provides a digital debit card with low currency conversion fees. I used this digital card for the first couple days in NYC1, and then set up an account with Bank of America. Thereafter I used my BofA debit card for everything; the Bloomberg salary was more than enough and I did not need to transfer any money in during the summer. (I did not end up applying for a credit card out of sheer laziness, though I researched beforehand and think BofA would have approved me. I know some other folks in my intern class were approved for a Chase card despite it being their first time in the states as well.)

  • Phone plan. I decided to keep my existing Canadian number and get a separate American phone plan. The latter can be surprisingly cheap, in contrast to the nasty situation in Canada (due to the Rogers-Bell-Telus oligopoly): I found a sweet deal with Tello offering unlimited data at just 10 USD/month. It’s also possible to just rely on US roaming; the trouble is that some services may not play well with non-American phone numbers (for instance, BofA’s SM authentication messages don’t work with Canadian numbers.)

  • Housing. Fortunately I didn’t have to worry about this point; Bloomberg provided free intern housing–more on this in the next section. I wish you the best of luck if you need to find housing in NYC yourself: I’ve heard it is immensely difficult and even more so if you do not have a US account to make deposits from (not to mention expensive.)

  • Crossing the border. In early May, I flew direct from YVR (Vancouver) to EWR (Newark). The border patrol folks at YVR were very chill–the only difficult part of the process turned out to be of my own making, since I mistakenly thought that border patrol had to mark my DS-2019 or my passport and voluntarily sent myself to secondary screening to get this done. After some back-and-forth, it turns out that Canadian citizens can just pass through without a stamp on their passport. Whoops! Had I not misunderstood this point, I estimate the border patrol step would have taken <5 min. In addition, although I brought various documents (such as my offer letter, my DS-7002 training plan, proof of funds, …) along with my DS-2019, border patrol only ended up glancing at my DS-2019.

Settling in

On arrival in the US, I verified that my SEVIS record was correctly created, and then validated my visa with Cultural Vistas. Some time later (in the first couple weeks) I applied for a social security number–which can only be done in person, for people on J1 visas–and set up a bank account with BofA.

As I mentioned before, Bloomberg provides free intern housing. This year, we were placed in the EHS St. George Towers in Brooklyn Heights. The rooms were double rooms assigned as singles, with a bathroom, two desks, two beds, a fridge, and microwave all to yourself. Brooklyn Heights is a gorgeous neighborhood and I found the accommodations very pleasant overall. My only (minor) complaints were that

  • The chairs in the rooms are horribly uncomfortable. I ended up buying one of these cushions off Amazon. (As an aside, during the summer, I stumbled on the Prime for Young Adults membership program, which gets you Amazon Prime for free as a student. I recommend signing up if you are planning on ordering anything from Amazon.)
  • Cooking is a bit tricky; although there is a kitchen, it is on the first floor and shared by all residents. It is quite the hassle to bring all your ingredients, pots and pans etc. from your room down to the kitchen and back, and thus I gave up on cooking early on. Instead I ate a lot of salad kits from Trader Joe’s and microwaveable food. (That said, since most people also give up for similar reasons, if you are set on cooking, you won’t have much trouble finding a stovetop to use.)
  • The commute to the office is a bit long (though not horrible), between 30-45 min by train. On the bright side, there is a subway station (Clark St.) right beside the residence. I recommend downloading Citymapper or the MTA app instead of relying on Google Maps, since in my experience the train arrival times that Maps reports were often inaccurate. I also recommend the following alternative routes to what transit apps suggest:
    • for the commute to office, taking the 2/3 train from Clark Street to Borough Hall (going further away from Manhattan), and then transferring to the 4/5 and getting off at 59 Street. Transit apps will typically suggest taking the 2/3 to Fulton Street and then transferring to the 4/5 there, which is doubtless a more direct route but neglects that the Fulton 2/3 to 4/5 transfer is long, arduous, and deeply confusing. Moreover it’s more likely that you’ll find a seat if you get on the 4/5 from Borough Hall as opposed to from Fulton Street, since it’s earlier in the route.
    • for the commute back, taking the N/R from 59th Street to 42nd Street, and then transferring to the 2/3 (getting off at Clark Street.) These trains seem to be a little less crowded.

Some remarks about my first couple weeks at Bloomberg and the in-office experience are also in order. The first week as an intern is generic Bloomberg onboarding in the 731 office, and afterward you’ll join your team in the office they are situated.2 Bloomberg offers free breakfast3 and (famously) an unlimited selection of snacks, but no free lunch. I highly recommend Mealpal, which allows you to preorder from a selection of restaurants near you at a small discount (I saved ~$100 in total over the summer.) The catch is that each restaurant only offers 1-2 items on Mealpal, rotating daily, and in return you get the discount and skip the regular line when picking up. I found this tradeoff more than acceptable, given that I am quite indecisive most days and having less items to choose from is an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

My actual intern project was immensely interesting. Without sharing too many details, I can say that I worked on distributed concurrency limiting for a data export pipeline within Bloomberg Vault4. It was a lot of fun, significantly more than I expected, and I have only positive things to say about my team and technical work at Bloomberg.

Things to do

Here’s some of the favorite places I visited while in NYC. First, food:

Restaurants

I suggest downloading Beli if you are an indecisive eater, because the personalized recommendations come in handy. Here are three places that I really loved:

  • Eulalie: upscale French place, incredible atmosphere and service
  • Kin ramen: best ramen I’ve ever had
  • Manhatta: upscale American place on the top of a skyscraper, gorgeous skyline views and surprisingly affordable lunch for a fancy location (the food itself is nothing mildblowing, but is great for the price and the views)

And some lunch places close to the 919 Bloomberg office:

Nature/walks

Everything else

  • Broadway shows: normally somewhat pricey, but you can try for cheap lottery tickets or rush tickets. My favorites were The Great Gatsby and Wicked. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is also worth seeing (I’m not sure how to rank it overall, because it’s a different kind of experience than all the other shows.)
  • MyssTic escape rooms: great private escape rooms in Brooklyn
  • Top of the Rock: best observation deck in NYC
  • FAO Schwarz: many, many cute plushies

The end

I loved my time at Bloomberg and in NYC this summer. I hope to be back someday!

Much love to Joanna, who made this summer infinitely more colorful and fun. <3

  1. In hindsight, the Wise card wasn’t strictly necessary: you can just use your Canadian card directly and eat the small foreign transaction fees. Moreover quite a few Canadian cards have no transaction fees (for instance, the PC Financial Money Card, which I actually have), so it’s worth checking. ↩︎

  2. There are three Bloomberg offices in NYC: 731 Lexington, 919 Ave, and 120 Park. 731 Lexington is the headquarters and, in my opinion, the nicest building, though I worked from 919 Ave. ↩︎

  3. I learned from Bloomberg breakfast that people put hot sauce on eggs. Despite my initial skepticism I subsequently discovered that (1) it is a common thing to do and (2) it is also the best thing since sliced bread. Give it a try. ↩︎

  4. Bloomberg’s compliance data platform. ↩︎