How hard is it to live outside of SF when going to UCSF?

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maven555

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I have a free apartment in Berkeley and will be attending UCSF next year. Does anyone know how feasible it is to commute (i live 5 minute walk to BART) or is it worth the money to live in SF?

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To get to UCSF you need to take bart then muni. It's not that bad, as my sister lives by UCSF and commutes to berkeley =P. But I'd suggest you try out the route a few times.
 
i wouldn't think that it would be bad, especially saving $1000 (min) on rent every month. If my wildest dreams come true and I were to get into ucsf, I wouldn't be living in the city. I would say that probably more people than you think live outside of the city. Take the trip a few times and see if the commute drives you nuts. I doubt it will.
 
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Yea I'm sure it is feasible. I'm hoping I get in to UCSF next year and might even think about commuting from my house in the east bay . Hell, my father commutes everyday to the peninsula (45min-1hr each way). Sometimes a commute is worth the savings in rent unless you have a lifted jeep that gets 10 mpg. Actually an apartment on the marina sounds wonderful now.

Berkeley isn't bad at all. Go for it.
 
it's very doable to live in the east bay and commute to ucsf everyday. i work there and have co-workers who live in the east bay and do the entire bart/muni combo. from berkeley, you'd want to take the bart down to embarcadero (25 minutes) and from the embarcadero station, you're taking the N-Judah (muni) to ucsf. the bart ride itself is not bad, the bad part in the commute is the muni. it takes between 30-45 minutes to get to ucsf from embarcadero. on good days (very rare), i've done it on 25. it's very unpredictable.

bottom line: yes it is doable, but kind of a pain. ~1hr each way. i guess for the first 2 years of med school it doesnt matter much, but also realize that both the muni and the bart have fewer trains at night (after 8pm, some bart lines "close" and you'd have to transfer). also commuting to the east bay isn't cheap. for your commute, it's about $6.50-7/day not including a $45 monthly muni pass. it's much cheaper than paying SF rent tho.
 
The question is, how do you study? If you're the type of person that can study on a noisy BART or MUNI then you'll be o.k. I did that commute frequently over the last couple of years and it takes a min of an hour each way. I guess the other question is, "What is your sanity worth?"
 
Also, sometimes if you look long and hard enough, you can find affordable rent in SF. It took me a month in a half, but I found in apartment in Nob Hill for $650 a month, and I have paid more before in the East Bay for less space. I bet if you gave yourself plenty of time to do an apartment search, you could find something near campus for less than $700 a month.

Also, the other thing to consider that may add to the cost of commuting is food. When you live close to campus, it's easy to go home for lunch, dinner...I know as time goes on and I start to creep out of bed later and later and the semester moves on, I stop packing sack lunches and dinners and then start grabbing food out more and more...this adds up in cost as well. $10 a day for lunch and dinner, $50 a week, $200 over the course of a month plus $8 a day for transportation...you're already starting creep close to $400 a month.
 
it might be doable for the first two years, but when you hit rotations 3rd year and your schedule loses its predictability then you're SOL. I used to work at UCSF and live in the East Bay, and as far as I know there's no student parking, and street parking is for 2hrs. Bart doesn't run before 5am or after midnight, so if your rotation shift covers weird hours then you'll be in trouble. Also, I got sick of the commute from the East Bay to UCSF. Muni can suck your soul dry.

Also, 1.5-2hrs/day is a lot of time to spend commuting. You can't study on Muni or BART (I tried for the MCAT), so you have lost time that you will probably want to have. Your classmates will also live near school probably. I'd try to live in the city
 
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