<p>Does anyone know about living and studying in Boston as a college student? I can imagine it offers a lot but I was wondering about specifics just for the city of Boston.
Thanks!</p>
<p>For one, it’s expensive. Housing, food, transportation - it all adds up in Beantown. And the weather can be tough, especially if you’re not from New England to begin with. On the plus side, it’s a GREAT college town, the amount of young people about is truly amazing.</p>
<p>I live right outside Boston and I have a lot of friends who go to college at BC/BU/NE, as well as a few at Harvard, Emerson, and UMass. Due to the large number of colleges within and right outside the city, there is always lots going and it is very easy to find something to do. Its a great walking/biking town, but its not easy to own a car there, so I would recommend planning to not bring one. Besides, the T, although not the cleanest subway system in the country, is very convenient and it is easy to get around that way. The weather is typical of New England, with some brutally cold days in the winter and brutally hot ones in the summer, but it is nothing to get freaked out about, because it changes so quickly. Boston has some great restaurants, museums, and historical sites as well which also provides something to do if you get bored. Boston can be very expensive to live in, however, so if you do end up going to school here, look into what your college offers for student housing.</p>
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<p>I know something about it. What exactly is your question?</p>
<p>I was just curious about what boston offers that other cities or locations for college dont. Also, I am minimally concerned about making the adjustment between small town-life and big city-life. I know that I can do I was just wondering to what extent the culture shock woud prevail.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m not the one to answer that one. I grew up in NYC and when I got to Boston, it felt like a small town that went to bed early :-)</p>
<p>Many people have done it before you and loved it. It’s really a great place to go to college. Basically, it’s one of the safer cities and it has a huge population of students, and is small enough so that you can walk almost everywhere.</p>
<p>I went to BC a while ago, and had never spent much time in a city before. It’s a lot less overwhelming than cities like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. </p>
<p>It’s quite compact and the subway/trolley system can inexpensively get you most places you’d want to go. You can definitely get by without a car. It feels a lot safer than a lot of other large cities. None of the colleges there are in the few dangerous parts of the city.</p>
<p>In my experience, a lot of students at colleges there have a hometown friend at another nearby college. So it really does happen that people at one college get invited to parties and events at other colleges.</p>
<p>If you go to any college in the Boston area, be prepared for it to seem like half the students are from New York or New Jersey, and be prepared for them to seem pretty gruff and arrogant, at least at first.</p>
<p>Well thanks for the answers! I live in CT, in between Boston and NYC but closer to NYC so I go there pretty often. From those visits I know I couldn’t handle NYC for college, just too stressful haha. The one time I visited Boston it seemed great but I wasn’t looking at it in terms of potentially living there. Your description really helps. Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>You have to recognize, however, that all Boston colleges are not smack dab in the City proper. Wellesley is a good ride outside of town. Tufts is in an adjacent suburb. Boston College, while stradling the City line, is surrounded by expensive suburban-style homes to the west (Newton). Boston Univ and Northeastern are very urban. MIT and Harvard are in Cambridge, which is a little less urban than BU (IMO).</p>
<p>At BU more specifically I noticed that even though it does not have a closed off campus, the campus seems pretty well defined, unlike schools like NYU. Thats just my perception from the online video tour of campus. Is that true?</p>
<p>Yes, BU has much more of a defined campus than NYU, and is in a much less hectic neighborhood than NYU. The bottom line is that even if NYC is far too large, complex, and intense for you, it’s very possible that you’d feel quite comfortable in Boston.</p>