Steward Survival Guide
- Important contact info
- Moving to Tucson
- Commuting
- Paychecks and budgeting
- While you're here
- Making the most of being a student
- Where to buy stuff in Tucson
- Recycling
Note: Email addresses at UA are usually @arizona.edu, but sometimes @as.arizona.edu (but should work with out the as.), and sometimes @optics.arizona.edu or @lpl.arizona.edu (graduate students, faculty, and staff in Optics or LPL). They don't all go to the same place!
- Liza Soto (
lizamariasoto@...) is the main coordinator for the department. If you don't know who to ask, she can usually direct you. - Tiffany Deyoe (
tdeyoe1@...) is the associate coordinator, and will also help you with most things. - Scheduling Rooms in Steward (
astro-roomscheduling@list....). Include date, time, meeting room, meeting purpose, and primary contact. Use the schedule to find open times. - HR helpdesk (
hrsolutions@...) will direct your email to someone within University HR who can answer questions about their frankly mystifying website. - University Payroll (
FNSV-Payroll-Info@...) for when Steward Observatory Business Office doesn't reply to your emails - Graduate student directory (with pictures!)
- Master directory for Steward (with office numbers!)
- Steward Internal Resources. Everything from business office, IT, and administrative support.
- Mailing lists No new link found! Please find and let us know.
- University-wide directory (for everything else)
Tucson's main exports are sunsets 🌆, college degrees 👩🎓, and the cactus emoji 🌵. You'll love it here. The environment can be harsh, so stay out of the sun and drink more water than you think you need! You should watch out for the wildlife (🐗, 🐱, 🦂) in rural areas and park lands, but they mostly keep to themselves. (Relatedly, as with any city, lock your bike with a solid U-lock and don't leave valuables in your car.)
The Steward Observatory Business Office wants ample time to process your new hire paperwork, and will usually recommend that you arrive by July 31. This is still weeks before classes start, and for new graduates on a budget may cause financial distress.
The Business Office can process your hiring paperwork as long as you can get them your acceptable documents by that date, even if you haven't moved to Arizona yet. Liza Soto (lizamariasoto@...) or Tiffany Deyoe (tdeyoe1@`...) can assist with instructions for FedExing original documents for verification.
Choosing a place to live depends in part on how you're planning to get to campus. See the Commuting section for your options. This map shows where students have lived over the past years. Feel free to contact someone if you have questions about a neighborhood or particular area.
Check out where to buy stuff after you move here.
Tucson is very bike-friendly. (See where to buy stuff for suggested bike shops.) From east of campus, the 3rd St bicycle boulevard is the easiest route into campus. From the west, University Blvd starts on Main Ave and goes all the way through campus. From the north, Mountain Ave is your best bet. From the south, many streets are bumpy, but Highland isn't too bad. (Bicycle boulevards prioritize bike traffic and minimize car traffic.)
Bike racks are everywhere on campus, with a couple at Steward itself. Be sure to use a U-lock properly if you want your bike to be there when you return. (It's also a good idea to remove any lights or bags.)
~There is a free Steward Observatory "secure bike cage" located between the trailer and the business office (see map below). It is still recommended to lock your bike even in the secure bike cage The steps to gain access are as follows:
- Complete this form (UA NetID required to download)
- Present form to administrative assistant in the Director's Office along with your CatCard
- Get a code and use it to store your bike in the enclosure
Public transit by bus and streetcar has been free (funded by the City of Tucson) since 2020 (2025 update: and continue to be free!).
When this was not the case, transit passes were 50% off for students when bought through UA Transportation.
The streetcar stops at 2nd St. and Cherry Ave., across the street from Steward Observatory. Note that while the streetcar is a convenient way to travel, it is not a terribly fast way to travel. (You can usually make better time on a bike, especially near campus!)
Bus routes stopping near Steward include 4, 5, 102X, 103X, 105X, and 15. See the 2018 system map for more information, or the SunTran page for the individual route maps.
This section gets its own separate page because it's as long as the rest of this page on its own. Parking is fun!
Every year, people try to get an estimate of their take-home pay from the Business Office. Every year, they are similarly frustrated by the apparent impossibility of saying exactly how many dollars you'll have to spend on burritos.
Before you've even started classes, you'll probably receive a tuition bill from the Bursar's office. You are not responsible for paying your own tuition as a graduate student in Steward Observatory. You also do not have to pay the student health insurance fee listed on the tuition bill.
That said, there are also mandatory student fees every semester (approx. $700 of them) which cover library, athletic facilities, etc.. As of 2024, the College of Science pays these fees for us.
If you are an international student, either on a F-1 or a J-1 visa, you will need pay $100 more per semester which is used for international office's fees and maintaining your visa status and will be charged after a month of starting classes. Plus, for international students, there will be a one-time enrollment fee which is $395.
(deprecated, as we do not pay student fees anymore)
Especially important for first-years, who may be on a tight budget due to moving expenses, is the Graduate Assistant/Associate Deferment Plan. Note: you should fill out this form a couple weeks before the fees are due just to make sure the paperwork will be processed. This will give you an extra ~3 months to pay off the fees.
The semesterly student fees include a $25 athletics fee. This fee can be waived by graduate students but this must be done manually at the beginning of every fall semester. If you choose to pay the fee, or fail to waive it in time, it grants you free access to most sports' games. It does not include men's basketball.
See this page for directions on how to waive the fee.
Stipends go through university payroll, processed on alternating weeks. As of 2025-26, the stipend is $40,000. You'd think this would mean a paycheck of about $1300 (~90% of $38000 / 26 weeks), but you'd be wrong!
The powers that be have decided that we are only half-time employees during the school year (Fall and Spring semesters, when we're ostensibly taking classes), and full-time employees during the summer. If you are on fellowship funding (e.g. NSF GRFP) for a given semester, you may not hold a teaching assistantship for that semester. The graduate college doesn't have a problem with it, but the astronomy department does. (This is a Steward Observatory policy, written nowhere obvious, and discovered empirically by Rachael Amaro in Fall 2021. Check with the appropriate authorities to see if it still applies when you read this!) You may still fulfill your teaching requirement while on a fellowship, you just will not be paid by the department for that (Meredith Stone did this in F24).
It turns out that it's surprisingly difficult to predict the exact take-home pay amount. Health plans change a little bit from year to year, IRS rules change every tax year, and student fees depend on the year you entered the program. As of fall 2024, the semesterly pay is $22,750 over two 20-week periods and the summer pay is $15,250 over 12 weeks. Thus, the take-home pay amounts on the checks / deposits you get are likely to be around:
- Academic year pay: $1056.65 every two weeks
- Summer pay†: $2059.79 every two weeks from mid-late May to early-mid August
† Sometimes the pay periods are offset by one week from the transition to and from summer pay, so instead of six full paychecks of summer pay it is currently set up to be one paycheck that is half-semester half-summer, five paychecks that are full summer, and one paycheck that is half-summer half-semester. This changes whenever the school year gets realigned (see below), flipping between this and six full paychecks of summer pay. Semester pay always starts the week before classes start in August and ends the week after commencement in May. For the 2024-2025 school year, that means semester pay goes from August 19-May 22 and summer pay goes May 25-August 14.
Every 5-6 years (depending on the number of leap years since the last event and the whims of the powers-that-be), the university pushes back the start of school a week (because there's 1-2 extra days in the year beyond 52 weeks). When this happens (and you may or may not be told this ahead of time, we were unaware of it in 2019 until LPL students told us), YOU WILL NOT BE PAID FOR ONE WEEK. This occurs during the transition from summer pay to semester pay, and with the 2024-25 UA academic calendar starting on August 26 it happened in 2024 for the week of August 12-16. Summer pay ended August 9, but semester pay did not start until August 19. The next time this is likely to happen is 2029 or 2030.
Summer pay requires a form to be submitted to [email protected]. You should get an email about "summer compensation" before the end of classes (April-ish) with a form to fill out in collaboration with your advisor.
Messages about approving your timesheet can be safely ignored, as SOBO pre-fills them for you. You should still make sure your paycheck arrives on schedule, though, as mistakes can happen!
Initial author of this section: A. Bixel
Disclaimer: Tax laws for graduate students can be ambiguous. Confirm everything here with your tax preparer and your own research. In other words, if you get in trouble for following this advice it ain’t my fault. Also: this advice should only be considered valid for US citizens/residents.
The total stipend received in each semester is currently (beginning Fall 2024):
- Fall: $11,375
- Spring: $11,375
- Summer: $15,250
- Total: $38,000
Fellowships are different.
You can calculate your approximate tax burden online. Fall and spring pay has federal and state income tax taken out, and summer pay has both of those as well as FICA payroll tax. (You are exempt from FICA taxes as long as you are a full-time student, which is only true in fall and spring.) Fellowship recipients do not owe FICA taxes.
Note that amounts will vary if you have additional sources of income, deductions, or if you don’t file as single. You can also reduce your tax burden using the education tax credits mentioned below.
The Arizona state income tax was changed in January 2023 to be a flat 2.5%. However, the university automatically adjusted everyone's deduction to 2% when that occurred. Therefore, if you did not go in and fill out a new Form A-4 for 2023 (or do not fill one out when you are hired here), you will get a different amount back than in previous years, as our paychecks did go up ~$3-10 each from the lower deduction rate.
No (see “Tuition Reduction”) and no.
If you want to claim the education credits mentioned below, you have to file form 1040. Otherwise, you can file 1040EZ using your W-2.
Form 140EZ.
The AOC and LLC are tax credits (amounts which you can deduct from your income tax) based on your education-related expenses during the tax year (not the school year). You cannot claim both credits in a given year. To claim either credit, you must fill out Form 8863 and enter the credit amount on your Form 1040 (not 1040EZ).
The AOC allows you to deduct 100% of your first $2,500 of educational expenses and 20% of the next $2,000. This credit is only eligible to students who have not completed four years of post-secondary education at the start of the tax year. In other words most first-year students should be eligible, assuming you finished a four-year undergraduate program in the spring.
The LLC allows you to deduct 20% of your first $10,000 of educational expenses. All students should be eligible for this.
See here for more information on both credits.
Qualified expenses include tuition, fees, books, and equipment but not room and board (even if paid to the university). Steward grads do not have to pay for tuition and you shouldn’t pay for books out of your own money, but you can claim the semester fees under these credits!
Note that these credits only apply to amounts you pay yourself. Tuition/fees/etc. paid for by someone else are not eligible. Your tuition reimbursement is not eligible.
So you’ve won a fellowship. Congrats! Now you get to do more paperwork.
Fellowships are still subject to state and federal income taxes, but this amount will not be withheld when you receive the money. Instead, you have to pay your taxes directly to the IRS or AZ Department of Revenue.
Fellowship recipients do not have to pay FICA/payroll taxes because they are not on payroll (the fellowship amount is not reported on Form W2). You are also not self-employed, so you do not pay the self-employment tax.
Your federal income tax must be paid quarterly by the deadlines listed here. You can use Form 1040-ES to calculate what you owe in each quarter. Note that fellowship amounts are not distributed evenly over the year, so you may not owe taxes in every quarter. If you fail to meet these deadlines then you will be charged a fee when you file your taxes.
Alternatively, you can pay the entire year’s amount by the first deadline and skip the remaining quarters. This is what I recommend if you can afford it.
When you file your taxes in the spring, you will have to file Form 1040 and attach Schedule 5. On line 66 of Schedule 5, enter the total amount paid throughout the year.
You don’t have to pay your state taxes in advance, but you will have to pay the state when you file your Form 140EZ.
Perhaps one of the best things about being a grad student in Tucson is the low cost of living. An informal survey of living costs was conducted by Meredith Stone in 2025, with results here.
Summary: The majority of grad students report housing costs between $750-1250 per month, grocery costs of $200-400 per month, and 0 or 1 roommate. Most respondents lived within 5 miles of campus.
To stay in the loop, get an invitation to the Steward grad students Slack from a current student. Mostly Steward Observatory students, with some students from other departments who work with Steward faculty. (And, of course, alumni!)
Locations and exact times vary, so keep an eye out for emails from the department. But as a brief summary, these are some of the regularly held events during the academic year (August-May).
- Steward Observatory / NOIRLab Colloquium - (Most) Thursdays. Talks with both visiting and local astronomers co-organized by Steward and NOIRLab.
- Tamale Lunch - Thursdays whenever there is a Steward/NOIRLab colloquium, graduate students (and only graduate students) have a lunch chat with the visitor about whatever they want. Free tamales 🌯 and sides 🍚 provided. (Pro tip: remove corn husk wrapping from tamale before attempting to eat.)
-
Science Coffee - Monday and Wednesday, from 10:15-10:45 am in N550. Group discussion about recent papers on arXiv. Coffee ☕️ is available. Time and location varies from semester to semester - see UofA Astronomy slack channel
science-coffee-2025for most recent updates. - Department Tea - Tuesdays 1:15pm-1:45pm September through May. Free tea 🍵 and freshly baked bread 🍞.
- FLASH Talks - Fridays over at NOIRLab. Locals and visitors give short talks about their research. (Bring a lunch if you want.)
- Origins Seminar - Mondays. Astrobiology/astrochemistry/star+planet formation talks. (Bring a lunch if you want.)
- Galaxy Group Talk - Mondays when Origins isn't held in Steward. Talks on everything galaxy related. (Bring a lunch if you want.)
- TAP Colloquium - Mondays alternating weeks. Theoretical astrophysics colloquium. Free cookies and coffee. 🍪
- LPL Colloquium - Tuesdays. Lunar and planetary colloquia--mostly Solar System science, but occasionally there are speakers relevant to astronomers. Free cookies. 🍪
The #social channel on Slack is your resource for ad-hoc organizing. None of these are department events, so feel free to invite your non-astronomer friends.
For Steward IT support, there's a web portal at https://as-arizona.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1. If your issue cannot be resolved within the department, the ONLY way to contact University IT is via the 24/7 Hotline. It is almost impossible to get a hold of anyone in UITS, but our own Steward IT people are an interface for us.
For University HPC issues, hpc-consult@list.... directs your question to the HPC consultant team at UA.
There are some notable non-monetary benefits to keep in mind while eyeing your friends' private sector paychecks jealously.
New students are awarded $2500 to spend on their research. This can be a new laptop (though your advisor may also have funds for this, and it's worth asking them before you spend your own), or conference travel, books, or other research related expenses (keyboards, mouses, iPads, and other things included).
Work travel is work, but if you enjoy traveling it can be considered a fringe benefit. The University policy is flexible with respect to extending a work trip with a few days of personal travel, though you should of course discuss this with whoever is approving your travel.
- Adobe Creative Cloud - entire suite free for student use
- GitHub Student - Credits for Heroku, Travis-CI private builds, and other services. (GitHub now has free private repos for everyone, so you don't need to confirm student status to get that.)
- Kanopy for University of Arizona - Free streaming of a rotating collection of films (via the UA Library)
If you have a Pima County Library Card (available once you have ID showing your new addresss):
- Culture Pass — Two free tickets a week, twice in 30 days for several local attractions (including the Desert Museum, in the off season!). Subject to availability at a given library branch.
- eBooks / comics — Borrow eBooks or graphic novels through an app
Many local businesses offer student discounts with a CatCard ID, though it may not be advertised or clearly posted. It never hurts to ask.
- Amazon Prime - 6 month free trial and $59/yr after
- Spotify + Hulu + Showtime - all three for $5/mo ($60/yr) (maximum of 4 years, so if you used this during undergrad, sorry)
- Apple Music - $5/mo
- Apple - various discounts on new computers and iPads
- New York Times - $1/wk (or $30/yr)
- Nike - 10% off for students
CAPS stands for Counseling and Psych Services. Graduate School is full of ups and downs, and while opening up to your support group about how you are feeling is important, it is also important to know that CAPS is here to help as well. They are not only for those who are dealing with emotional or mental distress, but also for those who want to become better at self-care, self-love, and/or self-motivation. Our student insurance covers most of the costs for these sessions, other than a $20 copay for each visit. From veteran graduate students who have utilized these services, CAPS is very helpful and very useful resource for helping us (and each other) get the most out of graduate school! You can read more about them here: CAPS Info.
College of Science graduate students (e.g. Astronomy and Physics Ph.D. students) should be aware that all CAPS costs are covered (edit 2025: for all of one year, and then the university admin lost $250 million dollars and this stopped (please confirm)). The email from Dean Garzione (March 29, 2023) says:
The College of Science will cover graduate student costs for all services billed by CAPS. The type and scope of CAPS service will be determined by you and your CAPS provider. When you are seen for your appointment, tell your CAPS representative that you are a College of Science graduate student and they will bill the College for the services that you use.
- Fair Wheel bikes
- Sonoran Cycles - 10% student discount and the best shop pups
Many shops will have "Back to school" sales in August and January - however, their stocks may be picked over by September.
Perhaps the best place to get a deal on a new bike is the biannual GABA bike swap, normally in April and November. This is where many of the local shops liquidate unsold inventory at steep discounts. Arrive early though, sometimes entrepreneurs will buy entire inventories and truck them south of the border.
- UA Surplus Store - you never know what they'll have but it'll be cheap (notably the $1 chairs)
- Sam Levitz Furniture - 10% student discount
- IKEA - about 90 min away in Tempe
- Trader Joe's (all over) -- Cheap produce and other ingredients (in quantities suitable for the individual student!)
- General big-box grocery stores like Walmart exist; Albertsons/Safeway have 5% student discount and good rewards program.
- Lee Lee International Supermarket -- Surprisingly wide variety of dry and frozen foods from all over the world, as well as (mostly Asian) produce and perishables. Pretty cheap, but pretty far out of town.
- Sandyi Oriental Market -- Asian grocery store (with a Korean focus) not too far from campus
- Safeway -- TODO clarify where/when the student discount works.
A wise older graduate student told me Tucson is big enough to have "one of everything". What they meant was: there's generally (at least) one good option for most major cuisines and types of food. Rather than attempt to be comprehensive here, I suggest checking Tucson Foodie every so often (or following them on social media). The grads Slack is a good place to ask if you want personal endorsements.
For midday coffee runs, ordered by distance from Steward:
- Cosmo the Coffee Machine -- In the Interaction Area. Espresso on a bill-you-later basis, courtesy your Astronomy Grad Council. Bring your own mug, cost is $0.60 per cup.
- 5th Floor Coffee Club -- Drip coffee by monthly subscription. See Cindy Kontowicz in the office by the elevator on the 5th floor, or pay as you go.
- Starbucks (next to the the UA Library main entrance) -- It's Starbucks. Best times to go are at XX:30, when undergrads are in class.
- Catalyst Cafe -- Inside the BIO5 building. North of Speedway on Cherry Ave at Helen St. They do bagels and hot sandwiches too.
- Caffe Lucé -- Cafe and roasting company on Euclid by the Main Gate. Good place to hide out and read a paper (or write one).
- Scented Leaf Tea House -- The other popular hangout by the Main Gate, around the corner from Caffe Luce. As the name suggests, they specialize in tea.
- Slot Canyon Cafe -- Inside the ENR2 building. (And since it's a University building, you can chill there and nobody can insist you buy a drink to stay. Which is good, because the espresso drinks are meh.)
For off campus work sessions:
- Yellow Brick Coffee -- Tucson-based roaster, good people. Take the University/3rd St. bike boulevard east until you run into a fancy-looking apartment building. They're in the first floor.
- Exo Roast Co. -- Tucson-based roaster, good people. Cafe is a little small/can be quite busy, so best not to post up for an entire morning here.
- Presta Coffee -- Tucson-based roaster. Multiple locations, but this one is closer to campus.
- Cartel Roasting Co. -- Phoenix-based roaster. This is the downtown location, but there's also a popular one along Campbell Ave.
- SWS Computers - probably the only real computer parts store in Tucson
- Electronics: Many electronics can be recycled at: Suburbanminers Don't throw them in the trash!