“Surreal @ Stanford” is an attempt to quantify the gaps and the bridges, the cold and the comforting, of attending Stanford. Whether it’s a first In-N-Out order or the sudden feeling of inadequacy, we’ve all undergone new things since our arrival. In this column, Tanya Rastogi ’29 seeks to explore that liminality.

It’s a two-toned California evening, skin goosebumped in the shade and glowing in the sun, and I’m with my friends in the backseat of a Waymo. We’re headed to Chinatown before catching the Caltrain back to campus. It’s a Saturday and we have work to do. We have midterms that require studying. We have work and psets. We have so much to do, and none of it matters — not today, not on this yellowing San Francisco day. 

Let our thoughts go to vapor; all that is real is this instance, the music we’ve queued up on the little car screen, and the unsettling fact that I’ve acclimated to an unmanned wheel in under five minutes. We are here, right here.

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When I first arrived in California, I thought I was prepared for a techy atmosphere; what else can one expect from Palo Alto? My expectations were exceeded immediately, dizzyingly. Why is the exterior of every bus an AI advertisement? What do you mean driverless cars are an actual thing used as much as Ubers and Lyfts? How is everyone and their mother involved in a startup? 

For a couple of days, I texted my hometown friends about every hyper-Californian sight, about the rows of Cybertrucks spotted in parking lots, the tech bros with their computers at the climbing gym and, yes, every Waymo that zipped past my hotel before move-in day. But the novelty wore off within two weeks, and that terrifies me. Is it really so easy, so organic, to adapt to a brand new ecosystem? I don’t know if I am rooted or still wandering. I don’t know if I will ever know. 

I think about my hometown sometimes, about my friends now at Big 10 schools; I think about what they are wearing, how they spend their free time. It was only two months ago that we were driving around the city to random stores because there is nothing else to do in Midwest suburbia. Now, I’m only an hour from San Francisco’s innovation and vibrancy, but thousands of miles away from the familiar fielded highways, the gas stations, the biting fall air. As someone on the Internet once said, “Goodbye America — hello California!” 

Waymo is real, this past month has taught me. We are real, and maybe we’re all wandering, native Californians or internationals, startup founders or literature majors, students or professors. We are here.