A wiki for your survival as a VSR at Stanford! Visa, restaurants, bikes, housing, this is a compilation of what I learned in the past year about Stanford.
PLEASE HELP KEEPING THIS UP TO DATE by sending pull requests 🙏
- Useful whatsapp groups
- Eating at Stanford
- Finding a room around campus
- Visas
- Driver’s license
- Fun in Palo Alto
- Fun in SF
- Networking & Hackathons
- Surfing
- Cars
- Groceries
- Miscellaneous
PLEASE KEEP THIS UP TO DATE WITH PR
- VSR: https://chat.whatsapp.com/L0sYqiQGELb6qHfAzueUo7
- Volleyball: https://chat.whatsapp.com/DRpwepRYqca8RizjpeUEMN
- Surfing: https://chat.whatsapp.com/DrfDjBnrZVEFMMvY1j7SoP
- Germans at Stanford: https://chat.whatsapp.com/JcLB20lthHh7eiStLJbC9i
- Germans in the US: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HVqGRG5lanhKknBZMSMbNA
These are student restaurants across the campus. They cost $10 for lunch and $12 for dinner, under an all-you-can-eat format. Check out Arrillaga, Wilbur, Lakeside. Arrillaga has great cookies 🙂. If you’re broke, bring an empty lunchbox at lunch and save some food for the dinner.
Much fancier than the dining halls but overall more expensive, especially if you need to eat a lot.
You don’t have access to on-campus student housing if you’re just doing your master’s thesis here or being a research assistant. You need to be a proper student (undergrad, master’s, Ph.D). You might find an ad to sublet a room there from a student but it’s not common.
If you’re looking for / offering a room in a shared house or at someone’s, check out supost.com, facebook marketplace and the VSR chat. Craigslist might also be a good option but you find weirder stuff there. A reasonable price to pay for a room is $1,100 to $1,800 a month (you might find a $850 room one in a blue moon but don’t count too much on it).
If no rooms are available, find a couple of friends and start your own house! Find some people to rent with and check zillow.com to find house ads. You’ll need a US phone number and social security number for at least one of the applicants to apply on Zillow. Leases are typically for a year but you can negotiate for 6 months. You’ll need to show that you can pay (paychecks or a furnished bank account).
Houses are cheaper in East Palo Alto. It’s a bit less fancy neighborhood but they are more tolerant with parties and living there for 9 months now I’ve never heard about any accident.
To get a permanent job in a company, you’ll ultimately seek the H1b. A company has to put your name in the annual lottery (in March), and if your name gets drawn, you can start working in ~september. Check out https://formally.com/, a Stanford startup to help you through that process. If you have a PhD, you can self-sponsor yourself (e.g. you don’t need a company).
Note that multiple J1 categories exist. The “J1 Short-term scholar” cannot be extended beyond 6 month. If you are at Stanford for more than 6 month, you get a “J1 Scholar” - this one can be extended. So you might want to ask your professor to make your stay 6.5 months instead of 6 months, if extension is an option you would like to keep.
If you’re on a J1 already, check if the two years rule applies to you. It should be written on your passport. If it doesn’t, you can qualify for another J1 visa. If it does, there are ways around it (one way is to ask your country's embassy in DC to issue you a No-Objection-Letter).
You can apply for a J1 intern visa if you’re still a student from outside the US or if you graduated within the last 12 months: https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/intern-program. You can apply for a J1 trainee visa if you have worked abroad for at least 12 months after your graduation. https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/trainee.
Note: a classic scenario to get an H1b visa is to get a J1 first and have your company like you enough to apply for the H1b.
Cardinal Care is expensive and can be waived. The procedure for this was changed for Fall 2023 - it has become more difficult to waive. Let’s list insurances that were accepted for waiving Cardinal Care after August 2023.
ISO Care Elite for Stanford University From the International Student Insurance, it cost me $863 for seven months. Perhaps the cheaper plans also work for waiving Cardinal Care, but no guarantee.
For waiving, you need your SUNet ID and email address, i.e. access to Axess. This means you can only waive Cardinal Care after your first day at work retrospectively (I had access to Axess before starting though). You have 30 (double-check pls?) days time to waive. If your first waiver is denied you have multiple attempts until the deadline.
Your best deal might be to keep your European phone number. However, for some usages such as renting a house on Zillow or taking a car insurrance, a US phone number can be useful. Mint is $15/m for all illimited: http://fbuy.me/uHNRF (I get some $$$ if uou use that link). Every 3 months just reapply for a new discovery plan.
Yes.
Yes, if you have a social security number. Source: https://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/living/driving
Note: bring your ID! They will ALWAYS ask for it and a picture won’t work.
Ramen Nagi: great but plan on queuing a lot Cafe Venezia: good italian food and it’s cheaper if you are (speak) italian
The patio: Karaoke on Wednesday nights. Sometimes there are some events from the GSB. They have food. Overall your only option in Palo Alto, otherwise go to SF ;) The French House: obviously the best place to party in south bay ;) It’s my shared house where we organize one party +/- every 2 months
Clubs Monroe: very European, cheap drinks if you come early. Be there before 8:30 pm or expect a long queue.
Generative AI Events [by cerebralvalley.ai] https://cerebralvalley.ai/
https://glo.stanford.edu/ngso/ngso-overview-0#Schedule https://bechtel.stanford.edu/engage-our-center/programs-events/event-calendar/events-center https://live.stanford.edu/calendar/all/all/all/all/all
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GJQubCiIgAZwzgJnpHb55qo-D6p74vv7/view
The two surfing spots near Stanford are Pleasure Point and Pacifica. For both you have shops nearby to rent a suit and a surfing board ($40 altogether, cheaper if you have your own suit).
Check out SUpost.com, ads in the VSR group, and facebook marketplace. Always have a mechanic do a presale inspection so you know what work needs to be done and how much it will cost you (can be leveraged during negotiation and costs 80$ at Ali’s auto care)
Ali’s auto care: https://maps.google.com?q=Ali's%20Auto%20Care,%202211%20Monroe%20St,%20Santa%20Clara,%20CA%2095050,%20United%20States&ftid=0x808fca3bc7d60be7:0x7ca195e245019dc0&hl=en-US&gl=us&entry=gps&lucs=,47071704&g_st=ic Great guy, prices are good for a garage. Some things are difficult to fix like problems with the engines but many things are easy to do on your own like oil change or brake change just look your model up on YouTube and buy the parts on Amazon.
I use StateFarm, Taylor is great: taylor.childers.ecd2@statefarm.com. I heard good things about Geico, but it's an all-automated process, you don't get to talk to a human. And you need an US phone number. And it's not even cheaper. We tried AAA and frankly it was a huge pain. We had to talk over the phone to some undermotivated employee, that followed a bunch of arbitrary rules. For example, adding someone else on the car wasn't possible, or getting insurred for the maximum amount (shut up and take my money!).
Regarding the contract: check the categories to know what you get insurred for. If you go to SF often, it might be worth paying for damages on the car since many windows get broken. The damage to another vehicle is super expensive, I didn't pay for it. Take the maximum on health damages insurrance since costs for health here can easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus the indemnification).
Trader Joe’s: good wine there, overall I like the quality of the products. Human-scaled. You can find original stuff. Walmart: huge supermarket, cheap, with many items being locked to avoid being stolen Target: expensive for what it is The market at Edgewood: high-standing European products. Great if you want that specific piece of cheese or chocolate. Grocery outlet: great price-product ratio, but small sortiment
Check out supost.com, the VSR group and facebook marketplace. A typical range is $100 to $300. To sell, you can check https://www.campusbikeshop.com/.
Palo Alto Bicycles: it was $40 to change a tire and brakes. Cheapest option remains to do it yourself while buying what’s needed on Amazon.
There are a couple of houses in EPA that enjoy fireworks. And when I say enjoy, I mean explosions all the time in June, at least in EPA. That’s something to consider if you planned on writing your thesis by then.
You can buy edibles next to the Patio for ex: herehttps://www.google.com/maps/place/Mac's+Smoke+Shop+Inc/@37.444828,-122.1634953,19.38z/data=!4m9!1m2!2m1!1sthe+patio!3m5!1s0x808fbb3a1c256f1d:0x7c4b2b2f8b480369!8m2!3d37.4441776!4d-122.1622516!16s%2Fg%2F1tg68bjw?entry=ttu)