[tweetybird11208]

im a young 20 yr old female living in Georgia and hate it. I recently traveled to florida(port orange) for the christmas break and fell in love with it and was thinking about moving there while going to school but i have been getting so many complaints about fl that there are no jobs and too many tourists and not much to do? is this true?

[lpmoj]

I've lived in Florida my whole life and have no complaints (23 years). You may find tourists in some places (like Orlando or Miami), but for the most part I think you'll find more old people than tourists. I'm not sure what the unemployment rate is for Florida (you can find it by city online), but personally I've always been able to find a job.

If you're planning to go to college but want to avoid the site of a tourist, then you probably don't want to go to University of Central Florida since it's in Orlando. University of South Florida is a great school that's located in Tampa. If you want a smaller town then Gainesville would be a good option for you. Gainesville is pretty much just a college town for students at University of Florida and/or Santa Fe Community College.

Florida State University is located in the capital of Florida - Tallahassee. I've never been there, but the pictures I see of it look beautiful.

Ultimately, I guess the college that you choose may depend on what kind of city or town you want to live in.

[bbronston]

If your plan is to move to Florida to attend college, research the colleges to find the one that offers the best program in your field of interest. Your degree will do more for you when you graduate if you have one from a school that has a reputation for producing well-educated grads. While you are going to school, you can live just about anywhere...it's the quality of the school experience that counts, not the ratio of tourists to permanent residents. On the other hand, if you need to work while you attend school, it just seems logical that there will be more jobs where there are more tourists so you need to think about that. I think many of the people who complain about where they live (especially here in Florida) wrongly expect the quality of their lives will change simply by moving to a new location. Yes, a new location brings changes but you and your attitude, your ability to keep a positive outlook, your ability to make chicken soup out of chicken poo, you are the one that will make or break a move. And, because it is you who controls the outcome, you can pretty much go anywhere and either have a good outcome or a bad one. So, my advice to you and everyone else who is either contemplating a move here (or regretting a move here) is to look at yourself first and decide if you have it within you to make things better. And, if you do, do you really need a change of venue? Make sure your new location brings something you need that your current location can't provide.

[doggiebus]

If you are looking for that real college experience than you should look at FSU in Tallahassee and UF in Gainesville. These two places really don't have a tourist season like the costal areas do.