Required reading

What you’re about to read is a tradition in the making—the first-ever publication of Goin’ Sac, a student survival guide to our fair city. In these pages you’ll find information and tips to help you settle in and adjust to life as a college student in what, from our perspective, is a truly unique place.

Our city has all the culture, cuisine and entertainment you’d find in a larger city, but you won’t have to sell your furniture to pay for it or sit in traffic for three hours to enjoy it. (Okay, maybe one hour in traffic.) We have big-time sports and small, intimate music venues. Independent theaters and monstrous multiplexes. Art galleries and CD stores. Cheap taquerias and special-occasion restaurants. All are within easy reach of California State University, Sacramento, students, who can ride the bus and light-rail for free.

Thousands like you come here each year to attend CSUS. Many of them stay after their college years are over, lending to the city’s youthful, vibrant, well-educated and diverse population. You won’t suffer much big-city smugness here, either. Sacramentans are friendly folk.

Cosmopolitan but not lacking in natural charms, Sacramento is often called the City of Trees. And we have acres of greenery—including the 30-mile American River Bike Trail adjacent to the campus—to prove it. Excellent mountain biking and hiking trails are nearby, and further east are the slopes, trails and shores of Lake Tahoe.

If you become a regular reader of SN&R (and we really hope you will), you’ll find a weekly guide to concerts, movies, restaurants, shopping, performances, exhibits and special events—along with commentary on current issues and some good-natured digs at the city itself. Don’t let that fool you, though. We’re happy here in Sacramento, and we think you will be, too.

Seniors recommend
Listen up. CSUS seniors have gobs of advice to help you get adjusted to campus—and life in Sacramento.

Meet Mr. Fix-It
A gargantuan state budget shortfall won’t stop CSUS president Alexander Gonzalez from reinventing the campus.

Club scene
On a campus of mammoth proportions, joining a student club can reduce your social, possibilities to a manageable size.

Sacramento on a shoestring
It’s Friday and you’re broke but itching to get out of the apartment. Don’t fear—you can survive the weekend on $10 a day.

Top tenant tips
We couldn’t bear to see you spend your first semester bunking with the roommate from hell or sitting on a toilet that won’t flush.