Any Stanford grad students here? How do you like it there?

Disclaimer: I'm currently not a Stanford student, but I grew up in Palo Alto, lived in the Bay my entire life bar undergrad in Chicago (enough to convince me I never wanted to live in the midwest), and have several friends and family members who did their grad and/or undergrad studies at Stanford.

Palo Alto's so-so socially for a grad student; the town's full of high schoolers and undergrads. The main people your age will either be other grad students living in university subsidized housing or multimillionaire tech/vc/trust fund kids, because nobody else can really afford to live in Palo Alto. You'll find more mid twenties people in SF or San Jose, so branch out if you can.

Palo Alto's probably the best place in the country for year round running. If you want to run on your own, there are miles of trails nearby. People who don't know the area well will tell you to run the Dish (hilly ~3.5 mile loop), but I'd recommend running in Arastradero Preserve, Foothills Park, Palo Alto Baylands (good if you want no hills), or Rancho San Antonio.

I did a bio-engineering post grad fellowship there a couple of years ago and live in Redwood City now. Palo Alto is a great place to live and it's not difficult to get hooked up with other runners there. Be prepared to pay about $2,700/mo for a crappy 1bdrm apartment in Palo Alto. My favorite place to run nearby is Huddart Park.

Congratulations. It has been a while now, but I was a grad student at Stanford and did postdoc work at UC Berkeley. Both places are amazing. You will not be the smartest person at either place. Both have excellent running options nearby. Like one poster already said, rent in the SF bay area will be a shock to the system.

Thanks. Any suggestions on good ways to meet other students? I feel like I neglected my social life in undergrad and want to work on that in grad school... but I know that people doing PhDs are also often busy. Are there any specific clubs or activities you thought were useful for this?

Meet other grad students specifically (I know some clubs are very undergrad heavy)

NorCal transplant wrote:

I did a bio-engineering post grad fellowship there a couple of years ago and live in Redwood City now. Palo Alto is a great place to live and it's not difficult to get hooked up with other runners there. Be prepared to pay about $2,700/mo for a crappy 1bdrm apartment in Palo Alto. My favorite place to run nearby is Huddart Park.

Did you do your post doc with Prof. Allison Marsden? She's the bomb.

Palo Alto is so expensive. Well every place near is. My brother in law was at Stanford for post doc. They lived in redwood city. The commute is easy on the caltrain. You can take your bike on the train too.

Look into qualifing for reduced rent so you can live in a nice apartment. Not some dark old gross place. But that might be hard to do. The new apartments in Redwood City cost $4200 a month for a 2 bedroom. To qualify for reduced rent you have to make between $74k to $88k. This gets you the same apartment for $1900 a month. Hopefully you're getting a stipend for grad school but that might not be enough.

The nice/new apartments have meet and great breakfasts on the weekends. There are lots of people in their mid 20s to mid 30s.

There are plenty of places to run as others have mentioned.

I'm a Postdoc there now and it's an insanely wealthy place and everyone is a genius. I usually run the dish but I also like Arastradero and then getting drinks at the Alpine Inn.

Also grad students get relatively cheap on campus housing.

You should definitely go there.

Also isnt there a celebrity runner from instagram at stanford who ran a 320 mile?

What have been your best ways to meet new people at the school?

Stanford is great... there are very smart and hot TGs there.

oh lawd

Rupp certified Caps for sale wrote:

I'm a Postdoc there now and it's an insanely wealthy place and everyone is a genius. I usually run the dish but I also like Arastradero and then getting drinks at the Alpine Inn.

Also grad students get relatively cheap on campus housing.

You should definitely go there.

Also isnt there a celebrity runner from instagram at stanford who ran a 320 mile?

Yeah, "at stanford"

It Sure is WHITE on campus. Weird.