Moving 10,000 pounds to school

I believe nearly all MBA candidates find themselves making some sort of sacrifice to pursue their dreams. Some may be separating from a significant other, some may be leaving behind close family and friends, some may be leaving behind a great job and career opportunities, some may be putting their entrepreneurial passions on the back burner, some are completely leaving their way of life and culture behind, and some may be making material sacrifices for their new temporary lifestyle. The latter may is the easiest of all these sacrifices, though it's still felt when you have to go through it.

This week the homestead got packed up. The military offers one free final move of all household goods when leaving service. The total authorized weight varies by rank, but normally it is more than enough. For example, I am authorized 14,000 pounds of personal household goods. This is the 6th military provided move I've made in my career, and will by far be the heaviest. The first three for example, I did entirely with nothing but my personal car. I estimate almost 10,000 pounds for this one. I know that sounds like a lot of stuff, but it's not so much when my suburban house has almost 3000 square feet of possible storage space. Since my new apartment is only (a generous) 800 sq feet, a lot of my stuff is going into storage.

Some things are particularly difficult to deal with. For example, I probably have over 30 sets of military uniforms - as they've changed more than once in my career. So what to do with them? I'm not going to sell US military uniforms to unknown parties on eBay. Nor does throwing a US service uniform in the trash ever seem appropriate either. So I've accumulated them, and continue to do so, until the proper solution presents itself.

I believe that this kind of painful downsizing is actually a significant deterrent to a lot of applicants. It can definitely feel like something of a step backward and requires a lot of sacrifice. If there was one symbolic pair of transaction for the whole theme, it was last week: I sold my beloved Porsche 996 (which was completely paid off) to help finance the MBA, and also bought a used futon on Craigslist because our apartment guest room is too small for our guest bedroom set. Now those are words I would had NEVER imagined saying just a few years ago.

For those 24 year olds coming from a studio apartment in Manhattan reading this and thinking I'm from another planet... just enjoy that freedom and independence while it lasts! There is a heavy cost that comes with success.

Crime in Cambridge

As I continue to search for off-campus housing, I queried the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) for some crime statistics; I was quite surprised. This may be the case of simply seeing what has always been around you, but I found the crime rates to be rather high for my standards. I'm not primarily concerned about somebody trying to hurt me personally, but I am concerned about car break-ins, car thefts, and home break-ins while I'm not home. So those are the statistics I focused on. The CPD has pretty good statistical analysis of city crimes and I suggest you look on their web site to learn more about your particular interests.

First, let's start by defining the different neighborhoods in Cambridge:


Most off-campus students live in Riverside, Mid-Cambridge, and Cambridgeport, roughly in that order. The police web site has multi-page reports detailing each particular neighborhood, so refer to it for more details. For now, let's just look at general trends.

Although detailed, the CPD crime analysis is 2 years behind. So for now the best we can do is look at the 2007 annual reports.

Robberies:

Auto thefts:


One of the most common crimes in Cambridge is GPS thefts. In 2007 there were 779 reported cases. That's over 2 GPS thefts a day, 365 days a year. Personally, the main hassle of a GPS theft is not just the loss of the GPS, but getting your window smashed and the time associated with dealing with the crime, the insurance company, and repairig the vehicle and the mess they leave behind. Most of us are pretty GPS savvy and remove the GPS from the windshield when we park our car in questionable places. However, the thieves are also pretty savvy. From what everybody told me, if they just see a power cable in the car, a suction cup, or even suction cup marks on the windshield, then the thieves will assume you have the device somewhere in your car and will break in (if your car is targeted). There are solutions around these problems, but the point is, if you love your car, off-street parking is a major consideration.


So all the above was 2007 data. I searched for 2008 data and the CPD have data from the first 3 quarters posted (see below). You can study the numbers for yourself, but a snapshot summary of crimes per day in 2008 show:

• Over 1 residential burglary per day
  
• Over 2 thefts per day from a car
• About 2 car thefts every 3 days

Violent crime appears to be relatively low for the population size, and it's also something I feel I have some control over in my behavior and actions. However, when somebody breaks into my house or car and I'm not around, is when I have much less control, which is why I focused on those statistics. I didn't get the impression that Cambridge is a particularly dangerous place by any means, but having situational awareness of the the crime rate and types of crime is important. The rest of the statistics are below.