school help: Any insight on these places? - Help.com

Chicago, ahh the windy city haha but it is a really great city a little sketchy in some places(liek most big cities), but if your going to a school the college area is great. I have only visited San Diego but from what i found it was one of my favorite cities. The culture is great tons of really .. in lack of a better word weird( but in a good way) people

well i hope i helped a bit

Kent has a very laid back, artisitc atmopshere to it. Awesome place.

I don’t think that was one of the options.

I live in San Diego and it is really beautiful, almost perfect climate, loads of great places to go and stuff to do. I’m from London originally so the only thing I think SD lacks is a lot of diverse culture, but that’s a skewed point of view considering where I grew up. The only thing with SD is that it can be really expensive to live here, and you HAVE to have a car to get anywhere.

Chicago has some of the best schools in the world. However, if you’re not used to living in a big city can be a bit overwhelming. There is a large complex of public transportation via bus and trains. The megopolis is so large that sometimes it can take several hours to go from one side to another, sometimes passing through some rough nieghborhoods. You will find many spots that have gang activity, which need to be avoided. There are also many schools in the outlying suburbs which extend 30 to 40 miles from the center of the city. Those schools can be either accessed by a series of rail lines or used as a place of residence and conversely to go to a school in the city. As one poster advises it can get very cold in the winter. Temperatures of 15 below zero and several inches of snow are not uncommon but few and far between. Somers are beautiful and can get quite hot. Spring and fall are always the best time of the year. If you like the outdoors you can find many parks and several forest preserves. Besides all of the museums there are two zoos and a couple of botanical gardens. You can easily spend all summer in the city seeing all of the sights. Most of the people are friendly, much more then in eastern states than but, not as friendly as most southern states. Contrary to popular belief all of the gangsters are dead and buried. If you still want to see them their buried in a cemetery in Hillside, IL.

Chicago:

I recently just moved here (sort of). I went to a school an hour south for 2.5 years and after graduation made the move and have lived here for 6 months now. When I would visit while in school I loved it here. It was so exciting to see all the people and I love wondering about other’s lives. There were several churches and I loved visiting different types of beliefs and exposing myself to a lot of the cultural things Chicago had to offer.

Now I see Chicago as being a much smaller location than previously but I think that’s just because I got used to the layout, the transit system, and have visited most of the “tourist” locations.

While Chicago may seem LARGE to other people it really isn’t. However, that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty to do. The transit system is quite manageable and easy to learn if you are good with directions (the city is built on a square grid style so it’s all square blocks). Also, the neighborhoods become easier to know with time, I can give you recommendations on which ones are safe, have good nightlife, easier accessed by public transportation, or are “cheaper.”

But that depends on which schools in Chicago you are looking at going to?

As for what to do here, there are museums, art galleries, libraries, restaurants, shopping, theaters of all varieties, clubs and bars, many sports venues, and beautiful parks. However, most of these places are closed by 10pm or even earlier in some cases - leaving the bars and clubs for nightlife. I’m not a big party girl so this has left me frustrated many times when my friends and I are kicked out of the coffee shop and left with no where to go.

And eventually the tourists get annoying. When you are downtown and in a hurry and they are all stopping and standing in the middle of the street trying to figure out where Banana Republic is - ugh. But you’ll find that in any city.

I also might mention that while the transit system is easy to get to know, it is also the most undependable and unreliable. Hopefully that will be changing since there were some new things just passed in the state that give the system more funding, but as it is now… drives me crazy!

It is nice that you are so close to the water and in the summer I would say the city lives the life it was purposed to live. Winters are nasty. It gets very cold and can be difficult to manage especially if you don’t have a car and rely on public transport as I do.

Overall I would say the city has an old, historical small town charm to it with a lot of the conveniences of art and history. It is extremely multi-cultural (I’m white and feel like a minority quite a bit of the time). But I would say that is a benefit as opposed to a con.

I love it here! I’m not going to lie, it isn’t as “easy” as I thought it would be, but overall the city is great. Some of the schools I recommend would be Loyola, Dominican, Columbia, Northwestern, and of course the elite University of Chicago. I’ve heard good things about them.

If you decide to move here, let me know, I love meeting new people!

I live in N. Alabama and have visited Tuscaloosa, and I know people who currently go there. Also, my brother in law went to grad. school there, and I would not recommend it. Tuscaloosa is basically a small college town with little other to do than go to class or to the bar. Birmingham has more to offer, but is about a 45 min. drive away. I’ve visited Chicago, and could not imagine choosing Tuscaloosa over Chicago if given the choice, but I guess it depends on what you are looking for. Tuscaloosa will have friendly people and a cheaper cost of living, but Chicago and some of the other places you are considering will give you a more diverse experience and offer more as far as public transit and cultural opportunities.