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deleted1062590
People who are trying to match and live in SF, NYC, Boston, LA, etc on 60-65k per year - what's your reasoning that makes it worth the CoL? Nearly all my friends are trying to go to these kinds of cities, and many didn't even bother applying to programs anywhere but the coasts.
Having spent my adult life in "undesirable" places like St Louis and Baltimore, can someone clue me in on why? These are real cities with metros of 2-3 million people, plenty of restaurants and bars and movie theaters and concert venues and sports arenas, mild winters, safe suburbs all the docs live in, and for the same price as renting a 600 sqft studio in california you can pay the mortgage on a 2000 sqft house.
So help me out folks. What are y'all planning to do in a place like Boston or coastal california cities that you couldn't find elsewhere? What is it about these places that trumps your housing situation, and having plenty of spending money?
Having lived in NYC and also a few comparable cities to both St. Louis and Baltimore--I personally agree with you. For me, while I enjoy big city living, CoL is the most important thing. And I feel like I can get enough of a city experience in a more affordable location, albeit on a smaller scale.
But I don't need to spend paragraphs explaining why NYC isn't the same as St. Louis or Baltimore. Maybe some people like having to choose on a given free weekend whether to go to MoMA or the PS1 or the Whitney or the Guggenheim or the Met versus just the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art, for instance.
To each their own when if comes to CoL and trade-offs, but the differences between St. Louis and NYC are obvious, and for everyone, it's not just about having a grocery store nearby and a 2 bedroom apartment.
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