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Advice for Internz
From an email I wrote to a friend who’s going to be a Microsoft Intern this summer. Ideally this page gets a bit of Google juice and other “internz-to-be” can hear my “words of wisdom.”
MSFT Corporate Housing vs. Finding Your Own Housing
The Microsoft housing is easy, but it’s a huge ripoff. When I was an intern, you could pay somewhere around $500-$600/month for the MSFT housing, or get $2,500 to find your own place. I got a group of 5 together (Harvard people + a couple Penn girls via a random facebook connection) and we were able to cover the rent on an awesome 5 BR house really close to work with just our stipends. In addition to the $ difference, the intern housing is really boring (standard corporate housing stuff), while you can find way cooler places if you go on your own. You almost certainly want to live in Bellevue/Redmond — commuting from Seattle is probably not something you want to deal with in the summer.
It’s definitely hard to find roommates, find a good place, and negotiate a lease remotely, but it is doable and totally worth it.
Car vs. Bike
You definitely need access to a car - Seattle is a driving city, and lots of cool stuff (like the islands up north) are only accessible by car. But if you live with a group of people (and live close to work) you definitely don’t need a car per person. In my house, we had 5 people and 3 cars, and that seemed like a really good number. I ended up doing the bike plan and biking to work (which was really awesome - they have showers in the garages you can use), and borrowing cars on weekends or using my free rental days.
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