

Ask HN: Living in Bay Area - oemera

I'm a 22 year old programmer from Germany and at the moment I'm working as a programmer for a small web agency.
After works I'm a student and I'm studying BA Business Informatics (I really don't know if this is the correct term).
At the moment I have 2 years left for my graduation and I can't wait.<p>While I love some parts of Germany (employment protection, health insurance ect.) and being a german I feel like I don't belong here.
I sick of this officialism and all of that bad weather here. 
I hate it to wait until I can get my hands on something people in US are using quite a while (cause law in Germany is making it hard to get over here).
I'm tired that companies in Germany are developing new software with technologies which are older than me.<p>Because of all that and much more I'm thinking about moving to a place where I can have all that I couldn't have in Germany.
As I'm a daily hacker news reader I'm thinking about moving to the Bay Area cause I feel like all that cool hacker related things are happening there. It's the heart of IT (right?).<p>However I don't know how living in Bay Area is like. I read about it a bit but everyone is talking about expenses.
I would love to hear a overall experience about living in the Bay Area? 
How is it like? What are hacker doing in there free times (except hacking)?
What are you doing with friends? Are you going to partys, hackathons?
What are you doing in your holidays? Are a lot of people surfing in Bay Area? (surfing was always a dream of mine)<p>Giving me a feeling about living in Bay Area / Silicon Valley could change my entire life cause this is really important to me.<p>Thank you.<p>Foot note: Sorry for my bad english. I'm working on it and please feel free to correct my text.
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yaxdotcom
San Francisco is often described as the most cosmopolitan of American cities
(excepting NYC). You may find it similar to European cities in terms of
nightlife, cinema, cultural activities, and people's eclectic interests.
Relative to Europe or Canada, there is little government support of arts or
culture but that doesn't stop youth from innovating culture. So you'll find
interesting people and interesting activities for entertainment.

San Francisco (and Berkeley/Oakland, across the Bay) are centers for culture
and youth with adequate public transit and neighborhoods where rents are
relatively cheap. The Peninsula and South Bay (the location of Silicon Valley
companies) are suburban (wide expressways, shopping malls and office parks)
and compare poorly to SF in terms of cultural activities but offer many
opportunities for outdoor recreation. Californians tend to choose outdoor
activities for recreation (running, biking, hiking, motorcycles) and late-
night partying or club hopping often ends early for those who get up early for
outdoor recreation.

Not many people surf (not as many as Southern California or our neighbor Santa
Cruz but of course more than Europe!). It's an option if it's your dream.
Surfing for some is an activity on a free weekend or an early morning before
work (if the waves are good). For others, it is a lifestyle that leaves little
time for career pursuits.

It's often said that Americans work longer hours and spend less time enjoying
life than most Europeans (if enjoying life is defined as time spent with
friends, eating food, drinking, or cultural pursuits). If you work in a
startup company, that may be doubly true, as your peers will expect you to be
focused on the tasks that will lead to success. You may find that a day at
work in the Bay Area moving bits is not much different from the same in a
European city. After work hours, you'll be tired but you'll likely find time
to try a new restaurant or grab a beer with workmates or a roommate a few
times a week. Among entrepreneurs, you will probably not have much free time
on weekends and you should not expect holidays.

These are broad generalizations, of course, based on my own personal
experience, so suitable only for stimulating thought and discussion. Your
mileage may vary.

~~~
oemera
First of all thank you for your answer.

At the moment I'm having a double life between working as a programmer (40
hours per week) and studying. It's pretty hard and I really don't have much
time for friends and parties but it's fun too. I think it made me a other
person and maybe a better person having this double life. What I'm trying to
say is I think I can handle a lot of work but I a guy who has to know why I'm
doing this all. If it is fun to work in a startup I will go that extra mile
with a smile but if it is not fun at all I wouldn't do that for a long time.

While living in the Bay Area seems pretty expensive I think Software Engineers
are earning enough to live well, aren't they? (Everytime I read salaries from
Software Engineers on HN I'm really shocked cause you would never get that
amount here in Germany)

Do you know if there is a chance to study for a master degree while working as
a full time Software Engineer? That's what I'm doing right know and in Germany
it is possible to study part time. It takes longer but it's ok and you can
live a pretty decent life when it comes to money (not everything is money but
that's a other topic).

Whats about getting a job in the valley as a Software Engineer. Is it hard to
get a job because of all excellent engineers around?

Any chance of chatting with you about all that stuff? Maybe Facebook?

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maxawaytoolong
Surfing in the Bay Area is hard for a number of reasons: you need a car and a
surfboard, the water is freezing cold (you need a thick wetsuit), Silicon
Valley is inland and blocked off from the ocean by a mountain range, and the
good waves are mostly for experts. That said, Cowell's in Santa Cruz is
probably one of the best places in America outside of Hawaii for a beginner to
learn. You can get there with a combination of train and bus and then rent a
longboard for an afternoon. Pacifica isn't too bad for a beginner, either...
but you'll need your own gear and a car.

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davidw
It's not going to be easy for you to move out there, since by and large the US
is not very friendly to foreigners, in official terms (getting a visa), so why
not take a good long trip there? Try and stay a month by renting a room for
that time, and just hang out... see what happens, how you like it, what you
don't like and so on. You could probably plan for and do that during the
summer, although I think you'd be really pleased with how much better winters
are in the bay area than at home...

~~~
oemera
Thank you for your advice it really sounds good to me. Although I think I'm
pretty flexible and you know if you are sick of something you will give
everything to make your dream work.

I searched a little bit and found out that I have pretty good chance getting a
visa for work (developers are needed, I will have a graduation, I'm young and
so on).

Yeah winters here are kinda hard and pretty cold. How is summer in the bay
area? Is it extremely hot? I checked some average weather data from san
francisco and it looked pretty good to me.

Renting a room will be kinda pricy but you are absolutely right about trying
first before I gave up everything.

~~~
davidw
The weather there is just about perfect as far as I'm concerned. It rarely
goes much below 10C in the winter, and it's not exceedingly hot in the summer
either, unless you go far inland. It depends a lot where you are - it's much
colder in the summer in San Francisco than, say, Fremont in the east bay.

In any case, yeah, go check it out, meet people, see what you think, and have
some fun before you commit 100%.

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maxdemarzi
If you have 2 years left before graduation how about trying to transfer to a
local university as an F-1 student.

