43 reviews
4.04 / 5 based on 43 reviews
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anonymous
Housing
Type of housing: Apartment/House
Arranged by: Independently - My choice
If returning, I would choose: Apartment/House
Why?
On-campus housing at SFSU is expensive. In addition, some rooms are really old and small. They only have dormitories, so you cannot get a private room for you alone, or for you and your family.
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Personal comments
Housing is a problem in the Bay Area. There simply aren't enough apartments available, so it's hard to find a place to live and rents are also high. The situation is improving, though, and it is possible that the rents will continue going down as they have done since fall 2001. Although there were problems in finding housing, I believe it's still worth to find off-campus housing because SFSU's apartments and dorms are not that good. Fortunately, there are several apartment complexes near the university, and many students live in their apartments.
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anonymous
Student life
Describe host city:
Students equally interact with the local and student community
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Travel, Activities, Nightlife: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment
Personal social experience
Personal comments
If you like pubs, there's Joxer Daly's, a simple Irish pub, near SFSU in West Portal. If you like night clubs, go to downtown to South of Market, and there are plenty of choices. Castro and North Beach also are good places to do clubbing. Some really beatiful or interesting places to go in San Francisco are Twin Peaks, Buena Vista Park, Sutro Heights Park, Seacliff, old games in Cliff House and Haight Ashbury. Some cool places close to San Francisco are Berkeley Hills, Point Reyes, Tiburon, and of course Highway 1 within a few hours to north from S.F.! I think that's the best part of Highway 1 in California, and so close to San Francisco... Check your tourist guide to find other tourist traps. These were some awesome places that came into my mind now.
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anonymous
Academic
Course recommendations
Check teacherreviews.com in order to avoid some weird professors they still have in SFSU.
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My academic experiences
Interaction with teachers
Interaction with international students
Interaction with local students
Personal comments
SFSU is not a top university, so there are students with all kinds of skills and experience - everything from poor to excellent. Make sure you study and do group projects with the right people, otherwise you need to do everything yourself. The quality of education is very good and professors are generally good as well, I had actually a couple of excellent teachers. But, check teacherreviews.com or ask your friends about the professors because there are some exceptions there. One thing that SFSU does not excel is the administration: there's a lot of paper work and byrocracy involved in registering classes, getting and submitting important documents, and doing other simple things. It really is a state university...
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My opinion of the university assessment
Exams throughout the course
Essays and/or projects at the end of course
Essays and/or projects throughout the course
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anonymous
Overall
I wish I had known...
SFSU is not a top university. I didn't know how important it is in the US that you attend a good university. The MBA program in SFSU is quite good, but SFSU's reputation is not good enough in the job market. I should have applied to UC Berkeley or Hayward or some other better university.
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In my opinion:
Most people loved it.
Important factors in my choice
(1) Unimportant – (4) Very important
Personal recommendation
It's a good university for almost everybody. It's a great chice for exchange students who mainly want to get a short experience in the USA because there are so many J-1 students from everywhere. About degree students (F-1), at least MBA program is ok, but you might want to apply for a top university because it makes a difference in this culture.
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During my experience abroad, I ...
(1) Never – (4) A lot
Became familiar with another culture
Met people from other countries
Experienced a change in life
Advanced my studies & career
Final comments
One helpful website in S.F. is craigslist.com. It has apartment and room listings. Subscribe to oipnews at SFSU to get info about SFSU events and to receive students' emails about housing, moving sales, book sales, etc.
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anonymous
Expenses
Main source of funding:
Personal savings
Other sources of funding:
Family<br>
Government assistance<br>
A private grant
Work opportunities:
I didn't explore any work options
Personal spending habits
I may be wrong, but food costs about the same in Finland and in the US, I think. San Francisco has almost unlimited number of restaurants from all over the world. It's relatively cheap to dine out, but it's still possible to spend much money on that. USA is a developing country in wireless telecommunications services, so prepare to pay high cellphone bills. Housing is expensive in the Bay Area. Housing in Finland is so ridculously cheap that the difference in living costs between Finland and San Francisco is mainly due to housing. Beer is cheaper in bars here than in Finland, or you just drink less here... :) I travelled a lot in California, so I had high travel costs. Commuting in S.F. is not that expensive though.
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Housing, Travel, Telephone:
was more expensive than at home.
Food, Overall:
was the same price as at home.
Nightlife:
was less expensive than at home.
Accessibility of student needs
Second-hand household items
Personal comments
Housing is a surprise. It's hard to get a credit card unless you have a credit history in the US. Credit history from a non-US institution is useless.
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anonymous
Languages
Language of instruction: English
Was learning English a key decision factor?
Yes, I wanted to improve my English
How much did you improve your English?
My level before: At ease in most situations
My level after: No problems in any areas (including slang)
Language difficulties
Administrative / Institutional
Personal comments
My English was pretty good already before I moved to San Francisco. Of course it improved a lot during the two years I attended SFSU, but I never had any big problems, not even in the beginning. There is one English writing class every international graduate student must take in the beginning (unless you pass an English writing exam, but nobody does it). If you have a good teacher and you take the class seriously, you learn a lot in that class.
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