diff --git a/mnist/README.md b/mnist/README.md
index dc97bd5c53..fc12f4c302 100644
--- a/mnist/README.md
+++ b/mnist/README.md
@@ -3,5 +3,6 @@
 ```bash
 pip install -r requirements.txt
 python main.py
+python main.py --data-dir /tmp/mnist-data
 # CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=2 python main.py  # to specify GPU id to ex. 2
 ```
diff --git a/mnist/main.py b/mnist/main.py
index dee5a384cb..6962a2d880 100644
--- a/mnist/main.py
+++ b/mnist/main.py
@@ -90,6 +90,8 @@ def main():
                         help='random seed (default: 1)')
     parser.add_argument('--log-interval', type=int, default=10, metavar='N',
                         help='how many batches to wait before logging training status')
+    parser.add_argument('--data-dir', type=str, default='../data',
+                        help='directory for storing input data (default: ../data)')
     parser.add_argument('--save-model', action='store_true', 
                         help='For Saving the current Model')
     args = parser.parse_args()
@@ -117,9 +119,9 @@ def main():
         transforms.ToTensor(),
         transforms.Normalize((0.1307,), (0.3081,))
         ])
-    dataset1 = datasets.MNIST('../data', train=True, download=True,
+    dataset1 = datasets.MNIST(args.data_dir, train=True, download=True,
                        transform=transform)
-    dataset2 = datasets.MNIST('../data', train=False,
+    dataset2 = datasets.MNIST(args.data_dir, train=False,
                        transform=transform)
     train_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset1,**train_kwargs)
     test_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset2, **test_kwargs)