Moving to Austin for a postdoc at UT

[ericsami]

I speak from expeirence.
for last two years I drove 183 & mcneil to Mopac and 360.
It never took me more than 50 minutes.

and if you wait until 9:45-10:15 it gets even better.

from farwest. it wont that long at all.

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by ericsami

I have plenty(6) of fiiends who live on farwest and actually fulltime students in UT.
graduate guys.

from farwest. It will never take longer than 30 minutes to get to UT. traffic really eases after 45th.

I would save the money live in farwest. and plus you get a nicer place in farwest.

then you can spend the extra cash to get out of austin go take ski trip or something.

This is untrue. It can easily take an hour plus door to door at rush hour. I know; it has happened to me. Plus my T.A. this semester lives in Far West, and is frequently late because of traffic, though that might just be him.

And nice is a subjective judgment; we need to know what the OP considers nice. I find the majority of apartment complexes in Far West very far from nice. Hideous would be my adjective of choice - nasty, shoddily constructed, popcorn ceiling, textured walls, lowest grade wall-to-wall carpet, paper-thin walls, so while the neighborhood is quiet(ish), your apartment is not - you hear your neighbors watching tv, walking up the stairs or above you, blowing their noses etc. And if you are close to MOPAC, the constant drone of traffic.

Far West, to me, is like East Riverside, without the crime, good Mexican food and the proximity to downtown.

And once you are on campus, you are stuck there. You can't go home to fetch something you have forgotten, go home for lunch or a nap, or a shower. As a postdoc, you are likely to have a bunch of evening events. Living in Far West, you could be looking at twelve hour days on campus.

This is the problem with working with apartment locators. They are paid by the mega apartment complexes, so they only show you places like the ones in Far West and the Arboretum, and then pretend that they are convenient to campus. They are not. For $800, you could find a one bedroom in neighborhoods like Clarksville, Enfield, Old West Austin in addition to North Campus, French Place, Hyde Park, in smaller older complexes which are actually quiet and walking distance to coffee shops, retail and campus when it is not too hot, and are also served by the UT shuttle. For $1000, you could find a one bedroom in one of the few older midrises in the part of downtown just south of campus, which is not noisy at night or a small house in East Austin or North Loop. You just have to tell the apartment locator very clearly what you mean by proximity to campus.

[gpurcell]

I've been a graduate student walking to campus and a graduate student taking the bus to campus.

Trust me, walking is MUCH better.

[df175]

Far West is the only "cheap" "safe" student area. There are a lot of Asian students (not Asian - American so much) living there, as they're a lot more anxious about crime, although that's based more on discomfort with not having good intuition about who is potentially dangerous. Riverside remains a pretty bad area, and many of the cheap places there have been demolished for new expensive housing that won't be student occupied.

That said, the commute from FW is the worst of all among the UT Shuttle system, because it's so far away.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by df175

That said, the commute from FW is the worst of all among the UT Shuttle system, because it's so far away.

I don't know why everyone is ragging on the FW Shuttle because in my experience it is not that bad. Non-rush times it really is a 15 minute trip, partially because its route mostly avoids the lemming migrations. And late at night, catching that 11:30 pm outbound trip, it's really nice to know that in 15 minutes you'll be there.

Morning rush inbound, and afternoon rush outbound it can take longer, but not that much... 20 - 25 minutes for the most part. And you're not driving, so you can read or listen to music or whatever.

Commute in a car? Why would you do that other than as an occasional exception? The bus is free, it's reliable, there's no parking to deal with. It's one of the really good features about Far West.