Hello,
I am a gay international student at a CC in California, and I am transferring this year. However, I have a question about three schools, UCSD, Gatech and UW. I am a computer science major and the current situation is that I am admitted to UCSD and have accepted its offer (due to the deadline), but at the meantime, waiting for two other schools.
So I am struggling. Since Gatech’s decision will be made in 3 days, I need to choose between Gatech and UCSD before UW comes to the stage. Can you give me some advice?
so, my personal requirements:
gay friendly both in the city where it is located and on campus (dating vibe, etc)
urban life
good resource for research and intern
academic rigor ( I prefer serious school instead of a party school)
thanks
Pay attention to whether you are admitted to the CS major at each school.
@ucbalumnus I am admitted to UCSD Computer Science. Tow other schools’ results haven’t been released yet but I need to think about it earlier because I have accepted UCSD’s offer and need to lots of other things to keep the spot. If i didnt get in any of two, then, I would not need to worry about it.
Seattle is very gay friendly and in a great city. I don’t know if you’ll like the weather though, it can drain some people. I love UW. Both UW and Gatech have a very competitive school, I don’t know much about UCSD.
GA Tech is a very competitive school, especially for computer science. Atlanta is a great city, very lively, and the weather is pretty amicable year-round. I don’t know how gay friendly the campus is or anything like that, sorry…
@elena3142 Thank you, I will have to wait for the decsion. hopefully I can get in Gatech, so I can get rid of the urgent deadlines of UCSD. @bzhang42 Thanks very much. let’s see if I will be offered admission. if yes, then I might want to choose it over UCSD. if not, which is likely, I will still have to wait for UW, which is July
Atlanta has a large, visible gay community. I don’t know abt GaTech but GaTech is adjacent to midtown, the center of the gay community in ATL.
@pizzathehut I have a huge inclination towards Atlanta as I saw a post today that Atlanta people think SF overrated as a gay capital. I think 80% chance I would choose Gatech over UCSD.
UCSD student’s perspective here:
San Diego has a pretty vibrant gay community especially in Hillcrest, which is basically the Castro of SoCal. (UCSD runs a shuttle between the main campus and the UCSD Hillcrest Medical Center every day). There’s a pretty active LGBT network on campus, and the Non-Sexist Dances are known to be the most popping events on campus (not sure how the dating scene is).
Urban life in La Jolla would be better described as suburban life, but it’s a great lifestyle and downtown San Diego is only thirty minutes away.
In terms of research and internships, UCSD has one of the largest research budgets in the nation, great name recognition in Silicon Valley and throughout the tech industry, and frequent networking and career events. There’s also a growing startup culture and hacking scene.
UCSD is not a party school, it’s definitely academically rigorous, and I’m not sure either of the other schools is a better choice. Have you had a chance to visit all three campuses?
I don’t know about San Diego, but I’m from Atlanta and I currently live in Seattle. Both are very gay-friendly cities, but the Seattle area is far less conservative than Atlanta. I loooove Seattle’s LGBTQ scene. Lots of LGBTQ tech networking groups and events and such. I felt like Atlanta was harder to really connect to the community, but that’s just me. Lots of other people have praised Atlanta’s gay scene and it’s the third or second most gay city in the country 
Seattle’s also more ‘urban’ than Atlanta. For example, Seattle is a lot easier to get around on public transit. In Atlanta, you basically need access to a car to move around efficiently. (Zipcar may solve that problem for you, I don’t know.) But if you do have access to a car, Atlanta is cheap and beautiful with lots of great restaurants. I think Seattle has more to do.
Seattle is obviously an excellent place to intern in computer science (I work in the tech industry here). Atlanta has a growing tech industry from what I hear, and they need people. The upside, too, is that if you decide to settle in Atlanta the cost of living is so much cheaper than up here in Seattle. The research is going to be excellent at any of these three.
Really, it sounds like you can’t go wrong.
Note that the computing industry in Silicon Valley appears to be more accepting of LGB than the surrounding area.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-rare-are-anti-gay-marriage-donations-in-silicon-valley/
Would that be similar in other areas?
Seattle is a very LGBTQ-friendly city in a very LGBTQ-friendly surrounding area. The vast majority of places a college student would go in the greater Seattle area would be very accepting.
Atlanta…is different. It’s more complex and nuanced. Generally speaking, there’s a thriving LGBTQ community and most pockets of the urban center itself can be pretty LGBTQ-friendly. But, venture into other areas or into the suburban ring around Atlanta, and you may get more mixed reactions depending on where you are. Some suburban neighborhoods around Atlanta are more moderate to conservative. Even the ones that are technically blue counties, like DeKalb (the immediate surrounding county that actually has part of Atlanta and part of Decatur in it), have more socially moderate stances and are heavily enmeshed in the Bible belt-type atmosphere. There I’d say level of comfort really depends on your social circle.