Sara
Des Moines is OK. The school is great, which makes up for what the town lacks. Of course your opinion of the town will depend on where you're form. I'm from Wichita, Kansas, which is slightly larger than Des Moines, but pretty comparable as far as services go. My main complaint about Des Moines is the road system. Many of the roads are narrow 2-lane roads, and VERY bumpy. Thankfully, they're repaving many of them in my area, including 35th St. in Des Moines, which runs past my apartment up to the school. There's some pretty good restaurants, an arena football team, a hockey team, a semi-pro basketball team, none of which I of seen play. The school is in a pretty good neighborhood, at least when compared to KCOM [KCOMers please don't take offense
]. It's an older neighborhood, with a lot of nice, old houses in the near vacinity. Housing near campus is variable, ranging from really nice, expensive apartments to trashy (but still not cheap) apartments. They have decent parks and bike trails here, and a pretty nice lake north of town. Overall, it'll do me for two years, which is all I plan to spend in Des Moies. Hope this helps!