Originally Posted by essendoubleop

I'm from northwest Washington State so imagine a blend of Seattle and Vancouver. I'm used to laid-back, intelligent, liberal, generous people and an ever-changing climate and variety of environmental landscapes. I've only recently fully appreciated how lucky I am to live in such a great place and would look for a number of similar characteristics in my next area of residency.

That being said, I LOVE the sun and doing basically every sort of outdoor, physical recreation activity. I'd imagine I'd get more opportunities for that in the San Jose area, while Long Beach is a giant sunny beach surrounded by an endless urban jungle. Of course I love going to sporting events (49ers and Raiders vs. ....... in L.A. for football), music concerts (more opportunities in Long Beach I'm sure), not so much into malls (money dumps for a grad student is not a good combo), am trying to get into BIOtech (though not necessarily the Silicon Valley computer tech), but I think my recreation activities will be limited during my time in graduate school.

Ultimately, I am more concerned with the practicals of living in either area such as living expenses, finding jobs, and general decency of people.