Moving to East Lansing (Detroit, Southfield: house, campus, suburbs)

[therascaldude]

Just got accepted to MSU. I'm moving out there in about 4 months, what can I expect up there? I've been to Detroit, Royal Oak, and Southfield many times but never Lansing. Right now, and for my whole life I've lived in Los Angeles......AND I HATE IT.

[caspper69]

Well, you didn't indicate how old you are, but since you got accepted to MSU, I'm going to assume you're a college-bound senior.

I grew up in North Carolina until I was 13, then moved to the suburbs of Detroit (Bloomfield Hills), which I hated because the atmosphere was 1,000x different than the small town I grew up in down south. But, I chose to come to MSU and have been in East Lansing for the past 11 years.

I love it. It's a slower-pace town (the Lansing area) than the burbs of Detroit and definitely slower than LA. I have a good friend from LA, and he claims to hate this place (but he's a typical LA personality), but he has a great time here, and I know he doesn't really hate it too much.

Basically, it's a college town, and a large one at that with ~40,000 students. Further, sports are a ton of fun, even when we suck, and most of the people are very friendly and down to earth. The downtown area is lively, with plenty of bars, restaraunts and shopping. It's definitely not a large city, but there's always something to do.

Beware that the weather is nothing like SoCal, but I'm sure you already knew that! Other than that, I actually love living here, but I do get bogged down by the winters.

Any other specific questions, I can most likely answer them as I am sitting in East Lansing as we speak.

[therascaldude]

sounds awesome, thanks for the reply. I'm actually transferring to MSU from a community college down here.

[caspper69]

That's cool. I guess my real concern was with the over/under on the 21 year old thing. Over 21, there's a ton to do and a lot of cool hangouts. Under 21, you'll mostly be at house parties and maybe dorm shindigs. I can give more info if I know your needs, and/or what you disklike about SoCal...

[therascaldude]

I'll be 21 in August.....so that'll be cool. Also, I'm an avid hockey player and theres likes like 1 arena within 25 miles down here. I think it will be a bit easier for me to play up there.

[Sanveann]

Yup, there's a rink right on the MSU campus (Munn Ice Arena).

I went to MSU (1994-98) and still live in the area. Personally, I love the Lansing/East Lansing area. I've found that people are quite friendly, and it's overall quite safe, too. While there are a few parts of Lansing I wouldn't choose to walk around at night, there's no place where I would ever be seriously freaked out if, say, my car broke down.

A couple of words of advice: Take your spring semester classes CLOSE to your house/dorm/whatever. January and February are the most brutal months, so you really don't want to be venturing across campus every day. If you must take classes that are a really long walk, take them in fall semester.

Sadly, most of the bars are now 21 and up. There used to be a lot more that allowed 18-20, but when Dooley's got shut down back in the '90s for serving underage drinkers, most of the others went to 21 and over. The Peanut Barrel might still be an exception, though (and it was one of my personal favorites when I was in school).