This is an absolutely awesome blog post - I wish I had read it before my internship this summer!
An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#12Thanks for the PadMapper shout out!
I've had to find apartments in strange (and familiar) cities a few times. Padmapper is by far the nicest tool I've used to do so.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#13You mentioned mission burritos, by any chance did you stop at El Farolito (Mission/24th), love that place!
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#14This 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.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#15Other cool things you should do: - Go to a GitHub drinkup - Rent a car for the day and drive on CA-1 S to Monterey. Visit the aquarium. - Check out the Thursday-night "Nightlife" event at The Academy of Sciences - Enjoy SF's music, food, and cocktail scenes - Network
I would imagine most interns are under 21 and thus cannot do most of these things. Though I do recommend visiting the Aquarium in Monterey, the Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences (During the day if you're under 21)
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.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#16One 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.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#17You mentioned mission burritos, by any chance did you stop at El Farolito (Mission/24th), love that place!
Hell yeah. Also, Cancun on 19th and mission.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#18This 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. Un…
Yeah - I really wanted to make it out to Berkeley but haven't had a chance. What are the places worth checking out? I'll add them.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#19This 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. Un…
Yeah - I really wanted to make it out to Berkeley but haven't had a chance. What are the places worth checking out? I'll add them.
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.
Re: An Intern Guide to a Summer in the Bay Area
#20I 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.