I was thinking about moving back to my old college town, but I dunno if it's depressing to live in one past your 20s. For perspective it has a total population of 200k and a student population of almost 35k.
Is it depressing to live in a college town
I promise you it won't live up to the memories you made there, move on.
also I guess for more perspective I'm 20 right now, I went there for college years ago for a few years and just continued my degree somewhere else across the country. I want to settle down because I'm sick of feeling like a drifter. It was a better town than anywhere else I've lived, which is why it appeals to me, but I don't want to sink the rest of my 20s in one place, just to feel foreign and alone again once I get too old.
Where am I even supposed to live? suburbs, city?
Live somewhere you can afford. You're 20, develop a marketable skill and worry about this midlife crisis in 10 years.
Let it go, OP.
I graduated from FSU two decades ago. The cooming situation was unreal in Tallahassee at the time, but I still remember being at the bar when I was 21 and seeing the grizzly 40-something washed-up hipster drinking until the end of the night to get whatever sloppy prostitute all the college kids passed over. Don't be that guy.
Get your head out of the gutter, you fricking coomer.
why not? he coomed
Sounds like he was just enjoying his time (beats drinking alone at home) and if he even scored with some bawd in the end, it's probably more than he hoped for
Every college town have establishments that cater mainly to locals, establishments that cater mainly to university employees, and establishments that to both, and they don’t cater at all to students. You just didn’t know about them or didn’t go to them because you were an undergraduate and not faculty or administration. But if you want to drink, you go to the those places. You don’t go to country bar with dollar shots every Wednesday. And if you want to meet women, you’re generally not doing it at a bar.
>if you want to meet women, you’re generally not doing it at a bar.
HIMYM
I'm pretty terrified of ever moving back to Gainesville for this same reason. Granted, I was born there, so I can imagine a life there outside of just football and easy college girls, but yeah. I don't think most people can, and the people sticking around aren't really aiming for much more in life.
Idk man. I graduated from FSU and I almost moved back once since the house prices were so much cheaper.
I feel like a good dating app profile and a decent car can make things heavily in your favor in that city. You don't really need to go out to the bars and clubs to get laid nowadays.
All the other replying to your comment and saying there's nothing wrong only proves your point. They most likely see themselves in that washed out, midlife crisis. Some things never change.
He added a lot of prejudiced details but fact is none of them really matter. The only people who think a lot about a supposed stereotype at the bar are the young incels who sit watching and contemplating other dudes because they have nothing (and no one) better to do.
you sound like you posted this with tears in your eyes lmao
It's only depressing if you cannot enjoy being a spectator and watching the kids have fun.
You have to be a male who stands out from the dorks, homosexuals and academics - and who has the social skills to follow up on an interested smile. Your age is quite irrelevant.
In a country where 18-21s are not legally allowed to drink in bars, this advice is reasonably sound.
You don't have to impress college girls; in fact, they are turned off by oldgays who love to brag about themselves, thinking that doing so impresses a gullible young girl. Being casual and being yourself is the best choice. Casual like you get laid every night with a different bawd. She will assume you are as good at fricking as you are at chatting.
lmao if you go to a college town as a good looking guy in your mid-thirties who has your shit together and no real autism you will clean up with the women. like shooting fish in a barrel. most of these girls go to college to experience the mature, grown-up real world...then they get to campus and all the guys their age just want to get sloppy drunk and party (I would know, I was one of them).
there's a lot of social cachet for them in banging some townie who has his own house and a good, professional job. this dynamic can persist probably until your mid-forties honestly, I know guys who still do it.
either way, I'm 35 and live in Madison. obviously not a strictly college town, but the university plays a huge part in municipal life. truth is that its perfect in basically all ways. the biggest drawback is that I have a long-term gf who I love very much and am extremely satisfied with, but she doesn't really like it when undergrad hotties hit on me with her standing right there. or when she catches me looking. lots of temptation follows me around this town.
but in every other way its 100% A+ great decision. big city amenities in a small city package with reasonable housing costs.
College town + state capitol is probably ideal. My college town is basically Madison minus the state capitol.
Can confirm. 8/10 ex in college called me over to introduce me to a 30something in line at a concert. She had brought him the day after I broke up w her, we both happened to be going I guess.
I would be embarrassed to be in my 30s and in line for a concert with a bunch of 20-something’s.
OP depends what your options are.
Imagine the following choices:
A: Small rural town with no university nearby. That means most of the young woman move away from the town and never return, and so your dating prospects will be shit.
B: University Town: Will be saturated with an abundance of young hot woman, and as a man in his prime dating years you could clean up.
C: City Lyfe: Can be fun and exciting, but expensive, and a lot of people become nobodies wrt dating, but some people will do well.
Like the other anon said, you have to move on to being an adult. You probably won't create a new crazy party lifestyle in the university town, but at least you could have a good dating life.
Everyone thinks they would clean up with young women in a college town, but it’s not actually that easy to meet them outside of apps. It’s not like you’re going to hang out at college bars forever.
I get zero matches with college girls on tinder, I think maybe my age range is too high
I get somewhat better luck IRL but still not great even though women in general say im attractive
I don’t know if pic is related, but I know at least half a dozen people who stayed in Ithaca after they graduated and are very happy there. It’s a cool little town. But if you ARE talking about Ithaca, it has a population of less than 40,000, nowhere near 200K. I also grew up in a college town (not Ithaca), and know even more people who stayed in town into adulthood there, and some who left and came back, for all sorts of reasons.
But to address your question, I don’t know if you will find living in a college town as a non-student depressing; I think it will depend on your job and social situation. I enjoyed growing up in one, and still like to visit once in a while. But I wouldn’t personally want to work at any of the universities I attended, unless I was teaching, which isn’t going to happen, which is for some grownups in college towns almost the only option.
Cornell ice cream is so fricking good. It’s the only thing I miss from college lol
Ayyy, Ithacan here. Don't have a job with the college but life is good here if you like the outdoors.
Us east coast college towns seem pretty comfy, ngl
College towns are basically the only small towns that don't make you want to seek Canadian healthcare in America.
I’m not sure what healthcare has to do with it, but as a born townie from a very little college town who ended up living in multiple college towns, I will say that one of the best things about them is that they’re nearly certain to have a better range of entertainment, food, and cultural offerings than towns of the same size without colleges. All of the college towns I’ve lived in (five of them in total, weirdly enough, although one was the aforementioned Madison, which is more of a small general-purpose city than just a college town) have been impressive in that way.
When I say "seek Canadian healthcare", I meant "have a nice day" - given the Canadian MAID. Small town America outside college towns is mostly depressing.
Yes. Do it. I was never a party guy in college, but I’d move back to Eugene in a heartbeat. Being a Grad Student in Summer was always so chill. The whole campus was yours. It’s also fantastic if you love sports.
kill ALL ducks
Corvallis is comfy as well
>total population of 200k
its a modest city, not a college town
its really based. I lived in New York (has among others NYU) for a couple of years. Was amazing.
Yes that famous college town, New York.
It ruled, I suggest everyone do it.
How do you do it on a student budget? And not end up with a million dollars in debt?
I took a job at my Alma Mater and moved back to mine when I was in my late twenties. In my experience, there are only a few negatives but they are big negatives. If it’s not a city, then professional opportunities outside of the university are scarce. And after about twenty-five or so, it can become really hard to date and have friends. Undergraduates are mostly eighteen to twenty-two. Most college employees are in their forties at least. You would think that there are plenty of graduate students and early career people, but if they are here I’ve not had an easy time finding them. In general, it’s just harder to be social and live a public sort of life. I found it really difficult to find ways to meet people. At the same time, I lived in a big city for just two years since I had a longtime girlfriend and old college friends there, I didn’t really have to worry about meeting people. So I don’t know if my experience is unique to the college town or if I would’ve experienced the same anywhere. I‘ve spent the last year traveling but I’m basically torn between going back to the college town or back to the city.
> actual testimony about living in college town
> 0 replies
One now 🙂
This guy knows what he's talking about.
What did you expect? This board is filled with coom larpers, doomers in their mid thirties or older, and remote "workers" that will eventually learn the hard way what happens when you screw with a third world economy.
>This board is filled with coom larpers, doomers in their mid thirties or older, and remote "workers" that will eventually learn the hard way what happens when you screw with a third world economy.
Ok karen
>Implying remotebros faking their location and inflating local economies aren't the Karens
Okay ESL jackass.
i still live in a college town because the rent is ridiculously cheap (only 15% of my monthly income and i have one roommate who is also a non-student and minds her own business) and it is walkable with a subway connecting to a major city. i've been working from home but will soon be going to my office in the city. just hop on the subway and go. i don't go to any of the bars or restaurants here because it's all college kid shit so i just go to town and it's no big deal. some places automatically give me the student discount prices because i still look young enough and they don't bother asking for my student id.
i'm almost 30 and in spring and fall it can be a bit obnoxious and embarrassing dealing with frat bros and sorority girls partying all night and crowding the streets...but that's really the only downside. in summer and winter it's dead quiet.
there is some crime since the dorms make easy targets for burglars but that means they are too distracted by dorms to pester regular folks. the walkability also means some bums come from the city to pester people but then they realize most of the people here are broke students so they don't last long.
haven't driven a car in almost 10 years. in america.
I'm scratching my head to figure out which college town and major city you're talking about. Is there a college town in the Philadelphia suburbs with a SEPTA station? I remember thinking that the train station at Swarthmore was cool, but it's not a subway. Presumably you're not talking about Somerville or Cambridge, because these aren't cheap or really college towns at all; most people I know who live there (including my brother) think of themselves as living in the city. I think most inner Boston suburbs think of themselves as neighborhoods of Boston, but I haven't lived in the region for quite a lot of years at this point.
Anyway, it sounds like a good life, but I'm very curious to know where it is.
Wait, maybe Rockville? And when you said rent was only 15% of your income, perhaps you weren’t saying the town was cheap, you were humblebragging about a high salary.
Anyway, I’ve got friends from Rockville, if that’s correct. Sounds like a nice place.
West Chester. Villanova. I doubt either of those is where he’s talking about though.
I also live in a college town, also 30, just turned 30 actually. I’ve been here since I went to college here, started getting a Master’s degree, got a job with the university, dropped out of the Master’s but kept the job. I think my experience is a lot like yours but different because there’s no city nearby. It’s a giant university, but it’s out in the countryside. No subway. No bums. Nothing like that. The walkable parts are pretty much student territory. You can still walk anywhere you want, but it’s more of a hike and less of a walk. The agricultural aspect makes up for a walk. If only I could afford a small farm or country house, I would never even think about leaving.
You in Champaign?
It's called Campagne
College towns rule
I live in a college town. It used to be cool until the hippies started electing white guilt progressives who turned my city into a magnet for every schizophrenic fentanyl addict in the midwest.
The only good thing is my house value is skyrocketing so hopefully one day i can leave this shithole.
lmao bro if you want to live somewhere with pussy just live anywhere outside of the US pussy prison.
sage advice
college towns in america are like water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. so in that sense yes depressing
just say you have zero sexual appeal instead of doomposting lmao
>lmao
>lmfao
>loooool
>bruh bruh bruh loool bruh loool bruh
I was working on campus the other day and chicks were checking me out but good luck getting any of that unless you are in that circle
It ain't that hard to break into circles. Roll the dice enough times and one will let you in.
depends on the town in question. In general, they're some of the best places to live in the US because our other cities and suburbs are built so moronicly.
It's depressing because they always have libshit flags and policies but they also attract lots of comfy niche businesses...boba tea, coffee shops, good bookstores
Awesome places to pick up chicks especially if you pretend to be liberal.
I'm British and 28, somehwat good looking, one of my mates is now living in NYC for work and we are considering hitting a US college town for jokes and to hook up with girls. Where should we go?
i'd be impressed if you can hit anybody up at the University of Washington in seattle, go there and prove me wrong
you are a homosexual
I’m in my mid 20s and in Ann Arbor. A city smaller than what you said but still a 6 figure population. At this point I’ve had my fill of this area and plan on doing grad school in a larger actual city.
When you live in a town that is very much a college town and the city is known for their university rather than a city that also happens to have a great university, you immediately notice a change in your participation of the culture once your university tenure is over. You also notice how many aspects of the culture and community are cut off to you once you’re no longer a part of student life. In these places their school IS their identity and culture so once you get that out of your system it’s harder to pivot into new aspects of life.
Considering you are still 20 and in that age group you will probably have a great time for the next 2-4 years but after a few I would start thinking about where/what else you would want to end up/do. Also too it’s always important to consider your surroundings to the city you’re living in. If the college town experience isn’t exactly for you anymore but you’re in a major metro area well then you have lots of options 15-45 minutes away. If you’re in a city like Madison for example though, the city might be nice and fun but once you’re done good luck finding anything outside of the city limits and the small 5ish suburbs around it. drive 15 minutes in any direction and all you see is farms and fields so your opportunities are trapped to that area.
Good luck my friend, you’re young and have plenty of time to figure it out, don’t be afraid to make mistakes and wrong decisions, while painful they’ll make you know what you want out of life a little bit more each time.