Stanford = great, Palo Alto = sux?

qvdp
Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:14:00 +0000

I’m actually from Palo Alto. Stanford is in the middle of the suburbs (when most people around here refer to Stanford, they’re talking about the shopping mall). The area is really nice, and you can do anything there that you can do anywhere else, but it’s not exactly made for college students. Downtown Palo Alto does have some establishments common to college towns (a wide variety of really good food, independent movie theaters, excellent new/used book/record stores), but a lot of things (especially housing and gas) can be ridiculously expensive. Almost no one lives off campus, and pretty much everything seems to happen there anyways, so I don’t think the surrounding area factors much into students’ lives.

Except…It’s beautiful…And the weather is ideal…

If you want to go to San Francisco, which is awesome, it’s about an hour by Caltrain (commuter rail) and 30 minutes by car. The Pacific Ocean beaches are about 45 minutes away, you can go hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains which are adjacent to campus.

It’s the greatest place on earth…In my opinion.