Moving to Minnesota from Arizona (Minneapolis, St. Paul: cliquey, 2015, apartment)

[littlelotte]

To make a long story short, I am moving to Minnesota (The Twin Cities) in 2015 to be with my fiance. Being a native Arizonan I am not sure what to expect except for cold. I HATE the extreme heat in Arizona and have been wanting to leave for years, so I'm looking forward to experiencing the polar opposite. I've done a fair amount of reading, and have visited but I want more opinions!

Generally, how is the job market? (I have a BA in the humanities field but plan on going back to school after I pay off my student loans)

Is it really so hard for an outsider to make friends? (There seems to be a recurring theme about Minnesota nice andclique-y-ness)

How is the culture? (I am a musician and very open minded)

I tried to keep it short, but let me know if you'd like to know anything else. Looking forward to your replies!

[MidwestRedux]

Overall, the economy and job market in the twin cities is among the best in the midwest if not the whole country. The wages are relatively high, especially given the reasonable cost of living. I'm not sure exactly what type of work you would be looking for, so its hard to be more specific.

I just moved from out of state and find the people here to be very normal. More so than other places I've lived, I would find it difficult to generalize the population. There are probably some very cliquey people here, but most seem like pretty reasonable human beings. Its a large enough metro area with plenty of newcomers, so making friends won't be a problem if you're out and about doing things where you will meet people with similar interests.

As far as culture, you have a full spectrum. The cities themselves are quite liberal and progressive, the outlying areas elected Michelle Bachmann. Again, there's something for everyone here.

There seems to be a decent local music scene, but I haven't had much of a chance to explore it.

What are you looking to do for work? Where does your fiance live? Will you be moving in there or looking for something else? Do you want to live in the city/country/suburbs?

[littlelotte]

Thanks for the reply. My fiance lives in St. Paul, we are going to get a bigger apartment together when I get to town. We want to stay close to his job, so our preference is to live in St. Paul or Minneapolis but we wouldn't mind branching out to Maplewood, Roseville or a surrounding area if we found something nice. I'm an event coordinator for a University here in AZ and would like to keep doing this, so I've been eyeing the U of M job site. I have a lot of administrative skills as well so I've been keeping my eyes open for administrative assistant positions as well.

[bler144]

Originally Posted by littlelotte

Thanks for the reply. My fiance lives in St. Paul, we are going to get a bigger apartment together when I get to town. We want to stay close to his job, so our preference is to live in St. Paul or Minneapolis but we wouldn't mind branching out to Maplewood, Roseville or a surrounding area if we found something nice. I'm an event coordinator for a University here in AZ and would like to keep doing this, so I've been eyeing the U of M job site. I have a lot of administrative skills as well so I've been keeping my eyes open for administrative assistant positions as well.

There are lots of mid-size private colleges in the TC that would have similar positions. Just on the St. Paul side of the river you could easily look at St. Catherine's, Macalester, St. Thomas, Hamline, etc.

I haven't used it in years, but you probably want to look at the HERC website: Upper Midwest HERC