Formal wear comes in handy occasionally. There is the freshman formal. Your dorm may also have a boat dance, so formal attire is good there too. A suit may be advisable for job interviews too, or formal presentations. Other times you may just want to dress up. The Viennese Ball is super formal, although you could probably get away with a standard suit. </p>
<p>At the minimum, you will need a button down shirt, slacks, dress shoes, and a tie. There are plenty of thrift stores in the area where you can pick up a jacket or a suit if need be. Also tuxedo vests are good, cheaper alternatives to jackets at the “informal” formal events.</p>
<p>I know major companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook etc… come recruiting CS students from Stanford, but I want to know how do they choose whom to recruit? Is it based on GPA?</p>
<p>^For on campus food, it’s pretty good. Dining halls and campus eateries are solid. Food in the area is somewhat limited, not helped by high prices. There are some nice options though. You don’t really notice Palo Alto might be lacking until you go to a place like Berkeley.</p>
<p>JeffMahel, having a suit on hand is a very good idea. How much you use it varies by the person, but it will come in handy for internship interviews, special occasions (say you win an award from the university), social events, etc.</p>
<p>StanfordCS, they recruit not just on GPA, but on what classes you’ve taken, what projects you’ve done, and what your specific expertise is (computer security or web development, etc.). Typically interviews for companies will ask you a lot of tech questions, often on in-depth programming topics. I think this tends to be more important than your GPA; if you show you have the knowledge, they’ll want to hire you.</p>
<p>If you’re good, you can land a job at a top company. This summer three of my CS/EE friends are interning for Microsoft, Apple and the third one let go of a Cisco offer for a startup offer he preferred. I also know 3 people at google, one at cisco, and one at linkedin. A lot of CS people decide they dont want to go into a big company and try their hands at startups or starting start ups etc…</p>
<p>^ oh and by good I meant just that. Good. Not necessarily amazing or anything. Just good. No need for 4.0 GPA or something like that but a good GPA (really everyone should try to maintain at least a 3.5 in my opinion) and you do well on their interview questions you’ll land the job.</p>
<p>StanfordCS, I don’t know how many exactly, but there are a lot. I routinely hear of people who are interning or getting a job at the top companies, like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Mozilla, Cisco, Oracle, Yahoo, Intel, VMware, etc. and also the top startups, like Quora, LinkedIn (though with the absurdly huge IPO recently, that might be a ‘top company’), Palantir, etc. I assume that there are a lot of people, since these are just the companies off the top of my head that I know one or more people have worked/interned at (Facebook and Google are the most popular, as I know of tons of people who have worked at either, sometimes both).</p>
<p>Any year; it just depends on how much you know and how willing you are to go after internships. I wasn’t advanced in CS but got a position at a prestigious research organization in SV the summer after freshman year. I had lots of friends who did research internships the summer after freshman year, but I’d say it becomes more and more common with each summer.</p>
<p>Is there any preference to Macs or PCs on campus? And what are the advantages of buying a computer through Stanford, apart from the obvious discount? Best Buy has a great deal on a Lenovo PC ($400) today and tomorrow which I want to jump on, but I want to know if it would be better to get one through Stanford.</p>
<p>^no you can’t. stanford dining and the cardinal dollars system is supposed to go through some big changes for next fall, so other things might change. but im 100% sure you will not be able to use them at the bookstore</p>
<p>I’m a really big eater, though, and Flo-Mo’s dining hall is closed on Fridays and Saturdays. Does that mean I have to hike over to a different dining hall every Friday and Saturday to eat my fill?</p>
<p>By the way, I’m eating big because I’m slim and really physically active, so I don’t think cutting down on my food quota is a healthy option…</p>
<p>^Yeah that’s pretty much what it means. On weekends, I would see the SLE and Fro-So-Co kids at my dining hall. They would travel in packs over, so it’s a good time to socialize. Also it’s a great opportunity to vary the food options and eat at Treehouse or Palo Alto even. But yeah, it will be pretty inconvenient for you to eat brunches I’m guessing. I lived right next to a dining hall and I often wouldn’t even go to weekend brunch.</p>
<p>Going to a different dining hall is not a hassle in the slightest. In fact, as Senior0991 said, it’s good that you do that. It’s not so much that you have to “hike” there, either, since you’ll already be going comparable distances to classes, visiting friends, etc. FloMo is also worth it since they have pretty good food + real ice cream (they had tea-flavored ice cream before; it was the first time I’d ever seen that in my life). Lagunita is right next door and has great food (IMO Lag > Ricker). Stern, Wilbur, ECDC, etc. are all within biking distance.</p>
<p>@phantas: Would you recommend doing a summer session after freshman year? Does it get boring without other undergrads? Is it more expensive?
Thanks.</p>
<p>^Classes are not cheap during the summer, especially when you consider the opportunity cost of not making money at a full-time job. Add in housing and thats a lot of money. </p>
<p>A lot of students tend to stick around campus. Some get jobs/internships in the area, others do research, others take classes, others RA or are counselors at the many camps at Stanford, etc.</p>