This guy totally missed out on the east bay. If your idea of cool is bumping into mathematicians/linguists at a coffee shop then Berkeley is hard to beat. BART makes it relatively easy to get in/out of SF (about an hour ride) except at night, the 800 does an okayish job after midnight. It's also absurdly bike-friendly, I've been living here without a car for a while now and I have needed to use zipcar maybe twice. Unlike the south bay, everything you might need is within biking distance.
The other nice thing is that if you're an intern under 21, Berkeley is enough of a college town to entertain you despite that.
If you're the kind of person who finds it hard to "bump into people" then I recommend you structure your life around commuting via public transit. People are already bored and usually willing to have a quick chat, especially if they have a laptop open and working on something neat.
The 20+ independent coffee shops with ample seating and free wifi. E-mail me (website in profile info) and I can show you around if you'll still be here. Tell Eric A. I said hi.
Ehh, the only actual good coffee in Berkeley is Philz. Oh, and Mokka, but that's far from campus. Oh yeah, and Local 123, but that's even further from campus and overpriced. Guerilla should in theory have good coffee but their service is kinda rude. Brewed Awakenings, where you're most likely to run into mathematicians, has awful coffee. Sonoma is alright. And... that's all I can think of, off the top of my head.
I worry these coffee shops might be getting oversold here, though. If you do run into a mathematician he'll be too busy thinking about mathematics to talk to you. :)
I'm not an intern. I've lived in the Bay Area for 6 yrs. If you have a summer, aren't from the area, and want to spend a little time doing some stuff outdoors, here's what I'd add:
- Go walk around a old growth Redwood grove. It's peaceful, impressive, and gives you an interesting perspective. Big Basin is the most accessible: From 101, take the Lawrence Expwy exit and just head south for a long while. There is a great little .5 mile "trail" with some of the most impressive trees.
- Drive down to the Big Sur area. It's about 2hrs drive from the Mtn View area, so a day trip. The drive is the highlight, but check out McWay falls (flat 0.3 mi hike) and Pfeiffer Beach (purple sand, natural arch with waves/sunset coming through). Pfeiffer Beaches turnoff is unmarked, so research in advance.
- Tour Alcatraz. Plan this at least a week in advance though.
- Rent a kayak and spend an afternoon on Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay. No experience necessary. Kayaking right past sea lions and otters is guaranteed. Visit Phil's Fish Market next door in Moss Landing when done.
- Visit Yosemite valley. You can generally get a tent cabin in Curry Village with almost no lead time for a reasonable price. Yosemite Valley is crowded but truly iconic.
Other than Yosemite, all of these are easy day trips.
The most important thing you can do is meet other interns, particularly if, like me, you go to a small school in the middle of nowhere which lacks a homegrown tech scene. There are tons of ways to do that, but the best is to just go to hacker events like hackathons, meetups and the various intern networking events that companies sponsor.
Before this summer I knew almost no one else interested in startups or who read hn. Silicon Valley is the center of that universe, and it attracts the best students from all over the country. Nothing is more valuable than taking advantage of that energy.
I think Alexey agrees, because he seemed to know every intern in the valley this summer. In all, great advice!
I'm almost done with my internship here in San Francisco, and it's been a great experience. I've heard people like Steve Souders and Brendan Eich speak and I spent a night hacking at the Computer History Museum (thanks to Mozilla) amongst other things. I found meetup.com, sftechtalks.com and the several tech related meetup groups to be a great resource as well. Attend them for the talks and as a bonus, get free food and drinks (mostly pizza just like in college) and goodies as well! Live life like a true (cheap) grad student!
One really nice thing about VTA light rail is that they have wifi now. It's still really slow, but that has helped tremendously. Also, if you are interning somewhere to the south, such as San Jose, there is now an express light rail line starting at the Santa Teresa station during commute times that is pretty speedy.
Protip: T-mobile has one of the more reasonable data policies.
If you're somewhere with no WiFi, you just plug your phone (in my case, a MyTouch 4G) into your laptop and set it to tethering mode. After hitting your cap (200MB, 1GB, or 2GB), your connection slows down but is still quite usable. No overage charges, no kill switch (but alas, slow video).
Likewise, when you are somewhere with WiFi but no cell phone signal, T-mobile will seamlessly route your calls over your phone's WiFi connection.
I bring this up because people still mention WiFi (in the article in regards to a cafe, and now here in regards to transit) as if it really matters anymore. For $60 a month, you can get 200 Anytime minutes, unlimited messaging, unlimited data, and connectivity everywhere that you have cell phone service; $10 more gives you unlimited calling, too.
Oh, and they have great, patient, helpful customer service. I don't work for them or benefit from this post in any way, I'm just a very satisfied customer.
/second T-mobile for those reasons, <3 em. You can also use your phone's wireless hotspot feature to help your friends connect their computers and phones to the net in non-wifi areas. I've done this a few times, like at Coupa Cafe on the weekends (when they turn off wifi) and the Caltrain's deadspots.
Just another reason to oppose the ATT merger attempt. No doubt ATT will ruin all that if they get their grubby hands on TMo.
The Monterey Aquarium is fantastic, but if you can get down there and do only one thing, just keep going south on Hwy 1. Aquariums are everywhere. Big Sur and the CA coast is pretty unique in the US.
This was a great article in general but I'd disagree with the advice to avoid the Tenderloin or the deep Mission. These areas can be actually affordable for people living on an intern's salary, with rents that are significantly cheaper than a comparable apartment in other districts. They also have some of the best food and dive bars you can find in the city at amazing prices. Go get Mexican anywhere south of 24th, Pakistani on Post, or breakfast at Dottie's on Jones and tell me I'm wrong. The neighborhoods are also close to public transit, the more interesting parts of the city (the TL is right next to Union Square for instance), and the offices of a lot of startups.
I lived in the middle of the Tenderloin (Hyde and Ellis) for 14 months and my startup's office is currently a block from "the most dangerous corner in the city" (Mission and 6th). My girlfriend lived in the deep Mission from age 6-10. I find I'm accosted for change significantly less often in the TL compared to the "richer" areas of the city. The way it seems to me, the homeless and drug addicted that frequent the TL are "at home" when there, when they "go to work" they head to the touristy areas where people have money to ask for.
The time I've spent in the TL has also been a great learning experience with regards to understanding less fortunate people. I've had a lot of really interesting (and quite a few rather weird) interactions with drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless. They really aren't a group that needs to be feared. They're just people trying to figure out a way to live with the cards they were dealt and a lot really appreciate the chance to talk to someone and tell their story. Its how I learned heroin dealers don't accept coins.
These more gritty areas of the city aren't nearly as dangerous as people make them out to be. Yes, if you walk down a back alley without assessing beforehand you might run into a bad situation, but this is true anywhere in the city. Being street-smart is a necessary skill no matter where you live in SF. The illegal activity that occurs in these areas (drugs/prostitution) doesn't and won't involve you if you don't get involved with it.
I know I'm rambling and waxing philosophical, but I find myself regularly defending these neighborhoods cause people just don't give them a chance. Go get lunch in a "bad area" sometime, you'll be surprised.
Otherwise, great post. Forwarded to a friend who's about to move out after college.
I know the whole deal with hackers and such, but I consider myself a "hacker" FWIW, and that list sounds terribly boring.
Tech is fun and all, but man, all summer? Really? Where are the art gallery recommendations? Culture precints? Good music venues? I know a lot of that is personal taste, but there is far more to life than tech.
We have art galleries (see SF MOMA in particular), but the Bay Area is less about indoor venues and more about the incredible variety of natural beauty that is all around it.
It seems like this would be really useful for anyone looking to move to that area, intern or not. Awesome post. I will be referencing this in the future if I move to SF.
Did you go to or hear about any of the github hangouts? I've heard from some people in SF that those attract a lot of tech people.
I'd also recommend checking out the Bay Area's social dance scene (especially blues and swing and also especially, in my experience, in San Francisco), which not only is active and welcoming, but also has a high concentration of coders and other computer science people.
I am really lucky to have found an internship in the bay area for this summer. It has been a really rewarding experience so far, I haven't been to any of the intern events listed, but I will have to make more of an effort to try to seek them out and find them.
InternMatch.com. I was in Startup Roots this past year and feel like the majority of interns that I met in the group had found their internships through there.
With that being said, if you're an amazing engineer you can just reach out directly to the founders of startups you'd like to work for. They'll listen.
The other nice thing is that if you're an intern under 21, Berkeley is enough of a college town to entertain you despite that.
If you're the kind of person who finds it hard to "bump into people" then I recommend you structure your life around commuting via public transit. People are already bored and usually willing to have a quick chat, especially if they have a laptop open and working on something neat.