Moving

>>18038645
Philadelphia. Seriously. Or Boston.
Baltimore blows.

>>18038697
Reasons? JohnsHopkins is a very prestigious school.

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The midwest is where dreams go to die.
>T. Missouri

Chicago is alright, since it's a decently significant city, but it's crime ridden af.

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>>18038645
Having spent years in all of those places, Chicago and Baltimore are both urban shitholes compared to the much more natural environment that is most of the West Coast. Both cities are incredibly violent. The weather in both places is far worse than the West (there's a reason people pay to live in West Coast weather), and getting fresh food is next to impossible.

You're going to school, so get used to spending a lot of time in the library or at campus events, because the West Coast experience of going to the farmers' market and then heading out into nature (mountains, beach, desert, whatever) does *not* exist either in Chicago or in the East Coast metropolis (since Baltimore is really better understood as part of the DC-NY megalopolis).

The only real value in spending much time in either place is it will make you appreciate where you are now.

Again, years of experience here. My condolences on your unpleasant choice of new home. Regardless of which city you choose, make sure you have a will.

>>18039567
Seriously? See I thought so. My assigned counsellors and psychiatrists have strongly suggested I continue my schooling closer to family but I love living in the west coast. I love hiking and being outdoors a lot. Neither of those places seem like an outdoorsy place. And I love the culture of the west coast. Where I live everyone is friendly and kind. Ive already told my family I'm going for school close to them. If I change my mind they'd be devastated.

I live near Baltimore, and have lived there before. Never been to Chicago, but I've lived here the majority of my life and also in Indiana, Tennessee, and Nevada.
The only thing I find shitty about Baltimore are the junkies and the trash. Other than that it's not bad.

>>18040100
Maryland has lots of places to hike and walk around. I go to patapsco a lot which is in Baltimore county, and it's really nice.

>>18040622
That's cool. So there are places to hike and stuff? I really enjoy being outdoors.

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>>18040616
>>18040622
It's not that Maryland doesn't have places that are nice, it's getting to them if one's based on the JHU campus in Baltimore that's the problem.

It's like living in the SF Bay Area...in Alcatraz.

>>18042163
Shit. That's what I was worried about. So I should just bite the billet and tell my family I'd rather live in the west coast? Or should I bite the bullet and learn to enjoy either of those places?

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>>18042174
That depends on where on the ~1,700 miles of West Coast you live. If you live in Compton you'll feel right at home. If you live somewhere else...probably not.

JHU and Northwestern (or UoC or wherever) are good schools. But education is available everywhere. Knowledge isn't constrained by geography.

You'd have to be more specific than "West Coast" for me to give you a definitive answer, but if you like living where you do and unless you want an urban adventure in danger and violence I would strongly advise you tell your family you'd rather live in the West.

That's not to say there isn't value in spending time in either the Midwest or the East Coast. If you've only lived in Cali or Oregon or Washington it's an education in itself. But Baltimore and Chicago, great cities they once were, are now violent hellholes that most people with any opportunity are trying to escape.

Getting a free ticket on the Titanic isn't a bargain. Think of learning this now - instead of halfway through your undergrad - as a blessing.

>>18042201
True, I see what you're saying, and I'm going for my doctorate. Just about finished with undergrad. I live close to the border of Washington and British Columbia.

>>18042205
OK, slightly different. A doctorate is dependent more than anything on your thesis advisor. Depending on what you're doing you may not have much time to leave your lab under the best of circumstances. So it's not quite as critical as undergrad.

I suspect the "haven't spent much time in the big city" vibe I ascribed to this being an undergrad trip for you may be because of you living near Bellingham or wherever. That part of the world is still largely a temperate rainforest, very natural and undeveloped.

Both Chicago and the Eastern Megalopolis are the antithesis of that. They were once great forests themselves, but centuries of industry and human locust infestation has left them husks.

Unless you're very lucky you're probably signing up for 5-6 years in someone's lab (I suppose it's possible you'd be going for a doctorate in music at Peabody). And some people do that by essentially locking themselves into the Biosphere that is their thesis and not coming out until they're done. In that case your bigger problem will be getting fresh food, but while that's not as available at a farmers' market as in WA it's available at local (driving local, not walking local) markets like Whole Foods, MOM, etc.

And depending on what you intend to do with your degree a taste of other parts of the world might be very good leavening for your personal bread. Experiencing how much of the country lives, the struggles and dangers of "sanctuary" cities, is an important part of learning to be a functional member of a society (a society that can survive, anyway). So maybe signing up for learning what life in the city is like might be an important awakening.

The biggest thing to understand is both Chicago and Baltimore are the other side of the moon from where you live now. You will be immersed in people and concrete and steel, not nature. You will need to prepare yourself before leaping into this.

Have you visited either place?

>>18042232
I'm going for a doctorate in clinical psych. And wow. Concrete and steel? I've been to both places briefly in the airports when travelling and thought there was more to them. Are there are conservatories of plants or greenhouses to go to? If it's so concrete and steel I don't know. It hit me the other day I should consider the lifestyle and culture as well as the program and profs.

Chicago is fine, just don't move into a neighborhood where black people live. You'll get robbed at gunpoint or mugged. I'm not racist, I'm just stating facts. I've lived here almost a decade.

>>18042839
Apparently Chicago isn't safe. It can't be all bad?

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>>18042802
You're about to spend 5-6 years of your life making yourself crazy. I'd say taking a week or two's visit to each place, with the goal of *seeing what it really feels like living there*, would be a very, very wise investment of time and money.

It's not like people can't survive in either Baltimore or Chicago (Chicago is physically much larger, I'd guess you'd be on the North Side). But that nomads survive in the desert and people survive in the landfills of the Philippines doesn't mean that any old person can drop on in and expect to do as well as they do.

Like I said, you're about to spend more than half a decade in whatever place you end up. Spend a few days living there first! See whether either one deserves that kind of investment of your life. (I suppose you could be an old-school type who believes in the beauty of arranged marriage - in which case "Go Orioles!")

Since landing a post-doc and a career can depend greatly on the school and lab in which one does one's thesis, you may not feel you have much choice. I'd still counsel you go visit, just so you know how to prepare for living there.

Clinical psych seems an appropriate degree program for you - and being in psychologically toxic living environments would be a useful POV to add to the usual memorization of DSM scripture. But while you're developing this new outlook on how environmental toxicity affects mental function it would probably be good if it didn't either make you crazy or kill you.

Go visit.

>>18042853
Chicago is fine as long as you stay away from the South side. Not the anon you're responding to but I've also been living here for ten years.

>>18043352

As a general rule: don't go to big cities at all in the US. They have shit leaders, shit food, shit inhabitants, and plenty of good old fashioned regular feces. Cities are for the rich, to visit briefly and consume the services of the poor before leaving.

If you're poor, then any major city is going to look and feel an awful lot like a prison. Maryland is a retarded state with retarded rules which don't work out in real life. Baltimore is what you get when you take the wrong approach to governance but spend decade after decade insisting you're doing things right.

Every people shall have the government they deserve. This is why traveling isn't all it's cracked up to be.

>>18043352
>It's not like people can't survive in either Baltimore or Chicago

I like to call this "the drunk driver fallacy."

The fallacy goes like this: if you do something incredibly dangerous and walk away unbothered by the danger, you forget the danger exists. It's entirely possible for a drunk driver to get home without a single scratch on his car. But if he drunk-drives a hundred more times, there will probably be a fatality at some point. Where you choose to move is where you're planning to wake up and go to sleep at least a few hundred times, so any risk remotely approaching 1% is a risk far too great.

You know you're encountering this way of reasoning, when you hear someone say "but I took that moronic risk and I'm still alive."

>>18038645
Where would you go to school in Chicago?

I've lived in Chicago for a long time. Baltimore is a lot smaller, but it's closer to other big cities on the east coast.

Chicago is a fine place to live, but it's nothing at all like the west coast. We have seasons. There's little nature, besides forest preserves and the lakefront, otherwise it's like a 6 hour drive north to get anywhere decent that isn't overrun with tourists.

Chicago has a great deal of culture and different opportunities for young people. There are lots of students here. Plenty of interesting neighborhoods. Always something going on. And Chicago in summer is really great. The lakefront is an amazing asset and there are plenty of beaches. The crime problem is overstated, and this is coming from someone who lives on the west side in a majority black neighborhood. Chicago could always use more smart people. The citizens are pretty friendly for the most part.

Screw both of them! Come to Lancaster county PA. You would love it here. It's full of little Amish shops and fruit stands. Lots of wildlife.

>>18043352
Indeed. I agree with you. A visit to either place is a good idea for sure. And, I'm pretty sure I've got the toxic living situation down pat. The past hasn't been too kind unfortunately.

>>18043631
In Chicago, I have my choice of Roosevelt, argosy, or Wheaton. >>18043645
Lancaster is beautiful! I enjoyed visiting there years ago. I've no family there though.