Your first week here is logistics, not restaurants.
Classes start Monday 31 August, move-in is the week before, and if you are new to Ann Arbor the student guide you actually need is the boring one. Where do I print. Where do I buy rice at nine at night. What is a BBB and how do I get to it.
This is that list. It is short on purpose, and food gets its own guides.
Somewhere to work while your room is still boxes
Duderstadt Center
Everyone calls it the Dude. It sits at 2281 Bonisteel Blvd on North Campus and it is the art, architecture and engineering library plus a lot of things a library normally is not.
Computer labs you can log into. Printing. Studios for audio, video and 3D printing on the Groundworks side. If your laptop dies in week three, this is the answer.
It has a reputation as the place people work absurdly late, but the hours shift between terms and around breaks, so check before you plan an all-nighter around it. Go once in your first week while it is quiet and you can find things.
2281 Bonisteel Blvd. Duderstadt Center
The buildings your schedule refuses to explain
Your class list will say BBB or Dow and assume you know. You do not, and neither does anyone else in your first week. All three below are on North Campus, which is a genuinely separate campus, not a corner of the main one.
Budget more than you think to get there. The blue buses from Central run often but fill up between classes, and door to door from the Diag is closer to twenty minutes than five. Walk or ride the route once in daylight before it counts.
BBB Building
The Bob and Betty Beyster Building, 2260 Hayward St, and the home of computer science. Big atrium, plenty of seating, and the place your CS discussion section will turn out to be.
If you are taking anything with EECS in the code, you will end up here. Learn the Hayward St side entrances now.
2260 Hayward St. BBB Building
Dow Building
The Herbert H. Dow Building, 2300 Hayward St, essentially next door to the BBB. Engineering, and materials science in particular.
Useful thing to know: Hayward St has several engineering buildings in a row and they connect in ways that are not obvious from outside. If you are late, going in the nearest door and walking through is usually faster than going around.
2300 Hayward St. Dow Building
A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
At 2000 Bonisteel Blvd, a short walk from the Dude. Architecture and urban planning live here, in a building most people just call the A and A.
Worth knowing even if you are not in the college. It is a good, quiet place to sit with a laptop, and it is the landmark that makes the rest of Bonisteel make sense.
2000 Bonisteel Blvd. A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Groceries, and the nine-at-night version of groceries
Orange Market
An Asian grocery at 1118 Broadway St, over on the Lower Town side between Kerrytown and North Campus. Small, stocked, and the fastest fix for the week you realize the dining hall is not going to carry you.
Rice, noodles, sauces, frozen dumplings, the things a full-size chain store buries in half an aisle. If you cook at all, or you are trying to eat something from home, start here rather than driving out to a superstore.
It is on a route you will already be taking if you are moving between Central and North Campus, which makes it easy to fold into a day.
1118 Broadway St. Orange Market
Arbor Teas
A local loose-leaf tea company based at 1342 N Main St, organic, and packaged in compostable bags rather than plastic. Cheap way to make a room that is not yours feel like it might be.
One honest caveat: this is primarily a mail-order operation rather than a shop floor you browse, so check before you turn up expecting shelves. Ordering online from a company two miles away still beats a vending machine at 11pm.
1342 N Main St. Arbor Teas
Where to swim when the campus gyms are full
Mack Pool
The city indoor pool at 715 Brooks St, on the west side off Miller Ave, run by Ann Arbor Parks and Rec rather than the University.
That distinction is the point. In September the campus rec centers are packed with people whose resolutions are three days old, and Mack is a normal city pool with lap lanes and open swim.
It runs on a session schedule that changes through the year, so look it up before you drive over, and expect to pay for a day pass or a punch card. Also useful if you want twenty minutes where nobody is talking about a syllabus.
715 Brooks St. Mack Pool
The thing nobody tells you in week one
VERVE Ann Arbor Apartments
You have just moved in and you are about to be asked about next year. The Ann Arbor student lease cycle runs almost a full year ahead, and by October people are touring buildings for the following August.
VERVE at 721 S Forest Ave is one of the big South University buildings, and it is a fair place to start understanding what that market looks like: what a room costs, what furnished actually means, how early the good stuff goes.
You do not have to sign anything in your first month, and you should not let anyone rush you. But know the clock exists, and go look at two or three places before you are making the decision in a panic.
721 S Forest Ave. VERVE Ann Arbor Apartments
Once the boxes are gone
Everything above is the errand list. When you are ready for the other kind of week, the full things to do in Ann Arbor rundown is the place to go next.
And if you are reading this because someone in your house took a job at the University rather than a class schedule, moving to Ann Arbor for a U-M job covers the version with a family and a neighborhood decision attached.
