Carrboro area-too many students? (Cary, Chapel Hill: apartment, chapel, homes)

[missalyssa]

Ok so I have almost decided on moving to Carrboro..Cary being another choice depending on where I get a job. Is Carrboro filled with college students? I dont want to be in an apartment with people partying all night or being obnoxious. I am comming down in 2 weeks from NY and will be looking around myself but just looking for some insider advice!

[Francois]

Originally Posted by missalyssa

Ok so I have almost decided on moving to Carrboro..Cary being another choice depending on where I get a job. Is Carrboro filled with college students? I dont want to be in an apartment with people partying all night or being obnoxious. I am comming down in 2 weeks from NY and will be looking around myself but just looking for some insider advice!

There are a lot of GRAD students in Carrboro, not so many undergrads. I don't think you have that "student vibe" there.

[CHTransplant]

Francois is right. Some parts of Carrboro are popular with grad students, and there are some undergrads too. It really depends, though, on what part of Carrboro you're talking about. The north end, for example - off Homestead Road (e.g., Lake Hogan Farms) has near zero student population or activity.

[no kudzu]

'm not saying UNC students don't have their share of fun but remember UNC is very picky about who they accept and most students here-under and grad- are serious about their studies. I find my encounters with Carrboro "students" quite unremarkable and ordinary-the encounters-not the students!
The only time students around here are really off the wall is sometimes on Halloween on Franklin Street and after a hard won athletic championship but then we all go bonkers when that happens.

[CHwboy]

In Carrboro, you won't find people partying all night, usually. But you might find people being obnoxious, depending on what you consider obnoxious.

Carrboro is not really drunken fratboy studenty. Chapel Hill is that kind of studenty, and swarms with undergrads. Carrboro is where the grad students live, as well as the undergrads who don't like the stereotypical undergrad stuff.

So Carrboro is full of faculty, grad students (like me) and often-pretentious undergrads. So no partying all night, but lots of the following: people in floral dresses; people in thick-rimmed glasses working on their macs in coffee shops; people going to the Farmer's market on Saturday morning; people with a foreigner-fetish which annoys the foreigners; people sitting on the outdoor decks of the two good bars, smoking cigarettes and name-dropping indie bands; smug students who overestimate the selectivity of UNC and thus their own intelligence.

Now, I happen to like a lot of that stuff. But if that's what you mean by studenty--and it is kind of obnoxious--then you might want to avoid carrboro.

CHwboy

[StoneOne]

Originally Posted by CHwboy

In Carrboro, you won't find people partying all night, usually. But you might find people being obnoxious, depending on what you consider obnoxious.

Carrboro is not really drunken fratboy studenty. Chapel Hill is that kind of studenty, and swarms with undergrads. Carrboro is where the grad students live, as well as the undergrads who don't like the stereotypical undergrad stuff.

So Carrboro is full of faculty, grad students (like me) and often-pretentious undergrads. So no partying all night, but lots of the following: people in floral dresses; people in thick-rimmed glasses working on their macs in coffee shops; people going to the Farmer's market on Saturday morning; people with a foreigner-fetish which annoys the foreigners; people sitting on the outdoor decks of the two good bars, smoking cigarettes and name-dropping indie bands; smug students who overestimate the selectivity of UNC and thus their own intelligence.

Now, I happen to like a lot of that stuff. But if that's what you mean by studenty--and it is kind of obnoxious--then you might want to avoid carrboro.

CHwboy

That pretty much sums up the entire Weaver Street area (which I like as well, on the whole, although it can certainly be obnoxious). You did forget the political groupies who snub their nose at the cars that aren't plastered with fading Obama stickers, "get off oil" stickers, another other such stuff...

There's actually more to Carrboro than all of that, as I've said in other posts. There is a huge Hispanic immigrant population here that is very well integrated, at least much better integrated than in other communities. If you know Spanish, you will have lots of people other than those types that CHwboy mentions. As CHtransplant notes, the northern and western stretches of Carrboro have fewer students.

Incidentally, there's also way more to most of Chapel Hill than students.

[missalyssa]

Thank you everyone!

[Francois]

That pretty much sums up the entire Weaver Street area (which I like as well, on the whole, although it can certainly be obnoxious). You did forget the political groupies who snub their nose at the cars...

I think you can leave it at this. Because nobody but oil-mongering Earth rapists would drive CARS, would they? Lotsa bicyles in Carrboro...

I've always found Carrboro to be the "Berkeley of the Southeast", in both positive and negative ways--though that is, obviously, stereotypical.

[layyze]

How do grad students afford to live in Carrboro?

[CHTransplant]

Originally Posted by layyze

How do grad students afford to live in Carrboro?

The same way undergraduates afford to live in Chapel Hill.