Student Life & Housing

Seattle and the University of Washington

Seattle, the largest city in Washington (with a metropolitan area population of more than one million people), is situated between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, with the Olympic Mountains to the west and the Cascade range to the east. It is a region of unparalleled natural beauty. Named America's Most-Livable City several times, Seattle combines the cultural attributes of an urban setting (such as good restaurants, opera, ballet, symphonies) with immediately available outdoor activities like boating, skiing, and hiking just to name a few. Seattle has professional basketball, football, and baseball teams as well as amateur leagues in all sports. City parks are located in all areas of Seattle, and there are several excellent museums in and around the city.

The University of Washington was founded in 1861 and is the oldest state-assisted institution of higher education on the Pacific Coast. There are over 34,000 students studying in a variety of fields, including arts and sciences, business administration, dentistry, education, engineering, fisheries, forest resources, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health and community medicine. The Graduate School has more than 9,000 students and 2,300 faculty members. Comprehensive intercollegiate and intramural athletic programs are offered, plus a range of musical and cultural programs. The beautiful green campus encompasses 680 acres and is located between Lake Washington and Lake Union. As a research institution, the University of Washington ranks first among public and second among all universities in receiving federal research awards. Academically, the University of Washington is ranked among the top twenty universities in the United States and is an outstanding center of academic excellence in the Northwest.

Departmental Computing Facilities

In addition to campus-wide computing facilities, the Department of Applied Mathematics is fortunate to have its own computing center with some of the fastest workstations and most powerful scientific software currently available. As of Autumn 1994, this hardware includes: 11 DEC Alpha AXP workstations (noted for their speed and processing power); an SGI Indigo workstation for high-end graphics; a large number of Tektronix color and grayscale X-Terminals; black/white and color printers; and a scanner. On the software side are: scientific libraries such as NAG and LAPACK; visualization and analysis packages such as Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, PV-Wave, AVS and S-Plus; a wide array of code-development tools and debuggers; and document processing tools such as FrameMaker, TeX/LaTeX, and standard text-editors (Emacs-19, vi, etc.). The Department takes an active role in maintaining its hardware and software levels at or near the current state-of-the-art, so this list must be taken as incomplete and subject to continual updating.

Accommodation at the University of Washington

Many of the graduate students living on campus reside in either Mercer Hall or Hansee Hall. These are mostly single-room residences and tend to be occupied by students over 20 years of age. Both halls have 24-hour quiet hours. Although cooking facilities are limited, microwave ovens are easy to find. The cafeteria-style residence food is served at several locations on campus from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight depending on the location. Room and board varies from approximately $475 to $600 per month, depending on the room and meal plan you choose.

The rest of the graduate students residing on campus will be found in the Steven's Court apartments or the new Steven's Addition. The single rooms are arranged in groups of four or six per apartment, and each apartment has a kitchen, a bathroom and a living area. Food is not included in the residence fee of about $324 to $356 per month for Steven's Court and Steven's Addition, respectively. There is generally a long waiting list for Steven's Court and Addition, so you should apply as early as possible.

There is some university owned family housing near campus for married students. The price range for this housing varies from $3,564 to $5,304 per calendar year. Information concerning all on-campus housing can be obtained from: Housing and Food Services, 301 Schmitz Hall, Mail Stop PC-50, 1400 NE Campus Parkway, Seattle, WA 98105 (Telephone: (206) 543-4059).

Since the University of Washington is a neighborhood university, there is plenty of off-campus housing very close to the University. For those choosing to live farther away from campus, it is easy to commute by bike or Seattle's Metro bus service (recently chosen as "Best Large-City Transit System" by the National Transportation Agency). Advertisements for shared and single-occupancy housing are readily found posted at the University or in local papers. It is most difficult to find a place during the weeks just prior and after the beginning of Autumn quarter. Prices for shared housing in houses and apartments range from $200 to $400 per month, depending on the quality of housing and the distance from the University. Single-occupancy housing prices range higher, usually from $350 to $550 per month. Information on off-campus rental listings may be obtained from: Off-Campus Rental Listing Service, 105 Student Union Building, Box 352230, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2230 (Telephone: (206) 543-8997).