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I moved to DC about 10 months ago and absolutely HATE living here. My lease on my current apartment ends at the end of March. I don't plan on renewing it. I pretty much knew my second week here that I had made a mistake.
I always wanted to move to Los Angeles, because i've loved it every time I visited it. I also want to live in a bigger city. DC is too small for me. The reason I moved here was that I was living in an economically depressed part of the USA and with a degree in IR this was the easiest place to get a job.
I currently work for a Federal contractor and despise the work. The pay sucks. The job sucks. It's a top-down organization and there is no room to think creatively or outside of the box.
Any advice on escaping from DC? California is a place where if you aren't already there, you probably won't get a job. This makes it difficult because I spent a lot of my money moving to this hell hole. I can barely save two hundred dollars a month due to the insane cost of living here and am basically living off zero interest credit cards that I carry minor balances on (only a few hundred dollars) month to month.
I've half though about enrolling in a Grad program I don't care about at a UC school in order to get there, but then i'd rack up tons more student loan debt.
Move into some crappy group house with a bunch of roommates and you can find rent really low, like $750 or lower. I'm assuming you are paying more than that in rent if you are talking about the insane cost of living. Plow the savings from the cheaper rent into a savings account or conservative investment portfolio, suffer through a crappy living situation for a few months and save enough money that you can move to California or wherever and have some token amount of money to live off of until you find a job. Maybe enough for like six months.
Definitely do not saddle yourself with debt and a grad degree program you don't care about just to move. That's a cure worse than the disease.
Sorry that you don't like DC. I love it but no point in making yourself miserable if it's not your cup of tea. LA might not be the panacea for your problems though. You say you want a bigger city, and yes LA is absolutely bigger than DC in terms of population, but in my opinion from visiting there a lot, it actually FEELS like a smaller city than DC. It's more like a bunch of connected, adjacent suburbs than one city. There is no part of LA that has the urban density of the central parts of DC.
In my opinion the only places in the US that have more of a "big city" feel than DC are NYC, Philly, San Francisco and Chicago.
^Totally agree. First, save as much money as you can right now. Then develop a plan to get to California. What types of companies do you want to target, and where are these companies located in CA? Then figure out if you have a CV/resume to be competitive for getting a job. Either network with people in your industry in CA or even contact HR of some of these companies, and figure out what you need to do to be competitive. You can even ask where they usually recruit from.
Getting a graduate degree from a CA school may make sense, but only if it helps you career-wise and if you enjoy it. It's always a bad idea to get a degree if you don't like what you're studying. It will end up being a waste of money and could take you down a bad career path. However, if you find out you do need a master's/other degree to be competitive, and it's in a field that is related to your career; then it would make sense to look at a California school since that would give you a chance to network in CA, and you would have more recruiting opportunities there.
I currently work for a Federal contractor and despise the work. The pay sucks. The job sucks. It's a top-down organization and there is no room to think creatively or outside of the box.
Any advice on escaping from DC?
There are numerous Federal Contractors in the Los Angeles area. Could you survive with a transfer from your current employer? Once you get to LA, look around for another jobs after a reasonable interval.
Well, tell us the following and we could probably guide you.
1- where are you originally from?
2- where have you lived in the past and what did you enjoy about living there?
3- what are some activities do you enjoy doing outside of your job?
4- what areas in DC, other than cost of living, would have to change in order for you to enjoy it?
Answer these questions and we, or at least I, will have a better idea of the type of person you are.
Remember, your attraction to a city is specific to you. Some people love the texture of the working environment, some love the texture of a fun and beachy environment. Some like country/suburb atmosphere. Some like a balance where they can work in the city but have an outlet beyond the city limits.
I moved to DC about 10 months ago and absolutely HATE living here. My lease on my current apartment ends at the end of March. I don't plan on renewing it. I pretty much knew my second week here that I had made a mistake.
I always wanted to move to Los Angeles, because i've loved it every time I visited it. I also want to live in a bigger city. DC is too small for me. The reason I moved here was that I was living in an economically depressed part of the USA and with a degree in IR this was the easiest place to get a job.
I currently work for a Federal contractor and despise the work. The pay sucks. The job sucks. It's a top-down organization and there is no room to think creatively or outside of the box.
Any advice on escaping from DC? California is a place where if you aren't already there, you probably won't get a job. This makes it difficult because I spent a lot of my money moving to this hell hole. I can barely save two hundred dollars a month due to the insane cost of living here and am basically living off zero interest credit cards that I carry minor balances on (only a few hundred dollars) month to month.
I've half though about enrolling in a Grad program I don't care about at a UC school in order to get there, but then i'd rack up tons more student loan debt.
Sounds like your life sucks no matter where you end up. Living off credit cards? Ugh!! You do realize LA is expensive too don't you?
I agree with the address on the resume suggestion, as well as trying an inter agency transfer.
I definitely feel you on DC living. For me it wasn't as much about the costs (although they are ridiculous for what you get back) but the nature of many of the people living there (see some of the replies you've got here for examples of the cattiness).
In the short run you might want to see if you can find something around Baltimore or Philly. Both are nearby but offer better quality of life in terms of costs and diversity, and far more down to earth people.
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