Thinking about Moving to Cali... (San Diego, San Francisco: rent, homes, university)

[mayorhaggar]

If you can get a decent job then everything here will fall into place, though if you can afford $1400 for an apartment in Maryland at 21 it sounds like you are doing well. Might be hard to find a job in California that would let you afford that kind of rent, but who knows what you'll end up doing.

Oakland is pretty cool and diverse in terms of class and race compared to the rest of the Bay Area. You can get a 1br for about $1100-1300 in nice parts of the city, or could get a studio for more like $700-900. You don't need a car but it's pretty easy to park in Oakland if you had one (parking in SF can be pretty impossible). BART is convenient and easy to use to get around but the local bus service sucks because it doesn't run often enough, so you might want a car to get around more easily. Or could get a bike which is what I do.

[.highnlite]

Originally Posted by Inspiredbyart

JaiJai- ok, I will do that. Thanks!

.highnlite - No, not really. I only know basic spanish,lol. Really? I thought California was more diverse than other states?

There is no Cali in California, it is in Columbia.

[Inspiredbyart]

Originally Posted by Charles

Oxnard and I think Oakland are fairly diverse. Oxnard is White, Hispanic, Black, and Filipino and others. The thing is, I don't know how many jobs there are in either places which align with your interests....just not sure....Oxnard has a lot of people associated with Navy Base Ventura County and also it has an agricultural heritage but now more farm fields are being plowed over into business parks.

I would recommend you do job searching and find places that have jobs which you can apply to. Maybe there are clusters or special areas.

Hmm..I will do a little more research on Oxnard, then. Thanks! Yea, that is something I will have to check out..the jobs. I'll start off with the job search like you said, and then go from there,because everything else would be based off of the job location.

Originally Posted by Charles

Also, just about no matter where you find a job, there will be no problem finding diverse neighborhoods to live in.

That's good to know!

Thanks soo much!

[Inspiredbyart]

Originally Posted by eureka1

Someone was pulling your leg re: Oxnard. It has NONE of what you are looking for. The problem with your query is that California is VAST. There is no one answer. You need to do a lot more research and then come for a exploratory visit. (Not to Oxnard.) Pin down a few areas you are really interested in and come back to us with specific queries. The "Search forum" button is your friend also. Later,

Lol! Oh, thanks for telling me that! Okay, I will do a job search, and some more research and gather a few specific areas. Thanks!

[Inspiredbyart]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

If you can get a decent job then everything here will fall into place, though if you can afford $1400 for an apartment in Maryland at 21 it sounds like you are doing well. Might be hard to find a job in California that would let you afford that kind of rent, but who knows what you'll end up doing.

Oakland is pretty cool and diverse in terms of class and race compared to the rest of the Bay Area. You can get a 1br for about $1100-1300 in nice parts of the city, or could get a studio for more like $700-900. You don't need a car but it's pretty easy to park in Oakland if you had one (parking in SF can be pretty impossible).

Mmm..I guess I should do some research on the wages for the jobs I'm interested in. I've looked at a few jobs, and the salaries seem pretty good.Those are good prices for the housing, I would need to come down there and really look around to get a feel of everything.

Originally Posted by mayorhagger

BART is convenient and easy to use to get around but the local bus service sucks because it doesn't run often enough, so you might want a car to get around more easily. Or could get a bike which is what I do.

◔_◔ LOL..yeah, thats how the busses were where I lived before. I just may start off on a bike.. depends on how far I would be living from work...

Thanks a lot!!! Your a big help!

[Inspiredbyart]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

There is no Cali in California, it is in Columbia.

OK. Thanks..

[Lifeshadower]

Ok, I'll give you some perspective as someone who's around your age (I'm 22) and have lived both in the Bay Area (went to college up there) and LA (grew up here), and spent part of my HS years on the East Coast.

Before worrying about location, try to think about what sorts of jobs you want first. There are some jobs that some parts of California will have way more abundance than other parts of California.

For your field, LA is probably a lot better than the Bay Area given the sheer amount of traditional media jobs (IE: radio, TV, etc.) that are located down here. However, if you're interested in more new media type things such as online broadcasting and the like, the Bay Area would obviously be better.

As for good colleges, what are you planning to study? The California Community College system guarantees you near access to every single UC (University of California) university, from Berkeley (my alma mater) to UCLA to Riverside to Santa Barbara, etc as long as you get good grades, or a CSU (California State University). It's one of the cheaper options to get into a UC/CSU.

As for diversity, honestly, people are going to probably murder me when I say this, but you can almost (are exceptions of course, but you aren't planning to go live in the 'hood) live anywhere in California and it will be relatively diverse, with the exception of California north of the Bay Area/Sacramento and the eastern mountains and deserts. If you can define more closely what you mean by "diverse" then it would be easier to answer. Both the LA area and the Bay Area (where Oakland is) are extremely diverse areas almost throughout, along with San Diego, Sacramento, and even Fresno (basically the 5 major media markets in this state)

As for nightlife, well....don't expect anything on the level of Vegas or Miami. Honestly, growing up near Hollywood and being around it so much, it actually gets sort of dead by 1 AM. If you make good enough friends when you live here, you're going to find yourself going to just as many house parties as you are going out to bars and clubs.

Again, prioritize first what you think you need. But if you have an open mind, California isn't so bad. Just come out here and explore

[.highnlite]

Before worrying about location, try to think about what sorts of jobs you want first.

On the other hand, I have always chosen where I want to be, then figured out how to make a living there.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

On the other hand, I have always chosen where I want to be, then figured out how to make a living there.

Worked for me.

[mayorhaggar]

Also I've heard good things about Long Beach, it's had a long-time reputation of being gritty and down and out but is now supposed to be a pretty cool place to live while still being affordable given its location near LA. And yeah if you want to do entertainment industry stuff, LA is way better than the Bay Area which is all about tech, law firms and banks.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Worked for me.

You're retired dood...in any case I think as of the last couple of years, moving to the other side of the US and expecting to find a good job, especially in California, is very optimistic. 5+ years ago it was very easy. Now not so much.