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I was just wondering what people could tell me about the city of Missoula, and the area in and around the University of Montana. I will be applying there, and would just like to know more about it.
Is it really scenic and beautiful like some photos/videos I've seen of Montana, or does that not really describe Missoula particularly? And what is it like in the winter, just as nice, or just so frigidly cold you can't even go outside?
Are there lots of good trails? (I'm an avid jogger)
What are the people like... I wouldn't really classify myself as a farmer or rancher, and was wondering if I'd be like an outcast or such out there, or if there were lots of people like you'd find in any mid-size American city?
I'm not sure if anybody knows, but I was wondering how the U of M Business program stacks up? I heard they got a new state of the art building just a couple years ago, and am just wondering if anybody has any comments on this topic.
Thanks
Last edited by terrific-tom; 09-16-2006 at 03:02 PM..
I was just wondering what people could tell me about the city of Missoula, and the area in and around the University of Montana. I will be applying there, and would just like to know more about it.
Is it really scenic and beautiful like some photos/videos I've seen of Montana, or does that not really describe Missoula particularly? And what is it like in the winter, just as nice, or just so frigidly cold you can't even go outside?
Are there lots of good trails? (I'm an avid jogger)
What are the people like... I wouldn't really classify myself as a farmer or rancher, and was wondering if I'd be like an outcast or such out there, or if there were lots of people like you'd find in any mid-size American city?
I'm not sure if anybody knows, but I was wondering how the U of M Business program stacks up? I heard they got a new state of the art building just a couple years ago, and am just wondering if anybody has any comments on this topic.
Thanks
Missoula is beautiful. Very green, lots of trees, mountains. If you like the outdoors you will love it there. The winters can be very dreary, grey, fog. They get inversions. There are very few farmers/ranchers around Missoula anymore. Anybody fits in. I don't know much about the business program but from what I've heard it's very good.
I'm thinking about applying for a job in Missoula but the one thing I'm concerned about is the weather. I live in the sunbelt because I can't stand the cold weather of the north. I don't mind northwestern cold though, like in Seattle or Portland. It's the painful midwestern cold like Chicago or Michigan that I hate. I know winter temperatures in Montana are very low but is it more of a northwest kind of cold or a midwest cold?
thanks.
Msla is beautiful. Lots to do, lots of diversity, college town, family friendly. Great mix of all types of people. Winters do get a lot of inversions, not a lot of sunshine, but when the sun does show itself: spectacular! We are in a dry climate year-round, not much in the way of humidity - so while the winters can be cold (low teens to 30s), it's not to-the-bones cold like you'd find in the upper midwest states.
Lots of trails to jog/hike such as Blue Mountain, the U of M hill, along the river front. The city is bicycle-friendly as well. A couple of small ski slopes right outside of town.
The area around the U of M is college-oriented, safe, easy access to downtown. Tree-lined neighborhoods and parks. Msla is a pretty big town/city with your garden-variety big-box stores, restaurants, etc., and downtown has a lot of speciality-type shops, it's safe to park and walk and really enjoy it. There's also an industrial parkway and airport - though you get better rates if you fly into Spokane usually.
Now if only the wages would go up (substantially w/benefits!), the housing prices mellow out, and gas prices go down........we'd never think about moving!
though you get better rates if you fly into Spokane usually.
Now if only the wages would go up (substantially w/benefits!), the housing prices mellow out, and gas prices go down........we'd never think about moving!
I'd agree with most every comment made by previous posters with the exception of the quote above. Certainly may be cheaper to fly into Spokane, but being 215 miles away you must consider the cost of driving, possibly staying over night, parking fees for your car. It's cheaper to fly into and out of Missoula.
As to the comment about wages, housing & gas prices, I have to chuckle. Whether she is or not I don't know, but those comments reflect the thinking of the many, many liberal and so-called progressive people who live here: jobs exist solely to make me comfortable; everybody else should lower the selling price of their houses except me; don't ever think about drilling the Rocky Mountain Front, ANWAR or off-shore!
So Missoula is a pretty nice place, (except for the liberals!); the Business School is excellent and has recently been endowed by Harold & Pricilla Gilkey for over 1.5 million for an executive leadership program; lots of opportunity for runners with trails along the river and through the city; the beauty is typical Montana, "and a river runs through it".
Western Montana's winters are best described as moderately cold daytimes with absolutely bone-chilling nights. Depending on where you live you'll warm into the 30's (plus or minus 30 degrees, this is Montana ), and cool down to the single digits at night, with below zero night temps common in the higher valleys. But the days really aren't that bad, and depending on where you live, you'll only get a little snow to a ton of snow. Missoula for example averages only slightly more snow than Chicago, Detroit, or Boston but Bozeman averages nearly one hundred inches of snow per year, which means a major snowstorm nearly every week during the colder half of the year.
In fact, there is a Heavy Snow Warning in effect for locations above 4500" (including Bozeman and the hills around Missoula). Expect 2-6 inches of snow in those areas....
I think some people here are a bit over playing how 'nice' missoula is. So let me go the other way. As some on here would atest I do have some grips about the town.
It is NOT a 'family' type town, it's a, can I use the term 'hippy-liberal' town, and hipply-liberals don't have many children and are not really family oriented....for example the local alternative newspaper that you find laying about in every resturant/shop/etc in town is the "Independent"....and I certainly wouldn't want my kids to be reading that thing, the language, the pictures the topics, the sex ads in the classified, if you get the picture. Sure there are families in Missoula, but I wouldn't by any stretch of the imagination call it a family type town. It's the kind of town that has the Hemp-Festival every year, if that gives you an idea, the town is also really big on gay type issues stories in the paper, news, etc, of course it's all pro-gay.
Second it is not as safe around here as some would have you belieive, once a year or so you will hear of raps in the universtiy area, shootings in UM of student housing, just recently there was a random murder, some kid shot a stranger with a shot gun, lots of drugs easy to be had if your kids are so inclined. A movie star that use to live here - I won't mention names - was said to have up and left becuase she didn't like the element of company her kids were falling in with.
As for the UM, I heard that the business school is good, but the school is noted for being a party school, which could be good or bad depending on your goals.
As far as weather goes - it could be nice - it could be really nasty, of later we've experince milders winters (good) but hotter summers (bad)....when I attended the UM in the 80s, the winters were absolutely brutal, the UM was shut down for a week once due to weather conditions. Every winter was -Wrap you face in a scarf and keep your chin tucked in and dash between buildings for classes. And it was like that every winter - it is only of the last so many years that we've been experiencing milder winters, is this really global warm, who knows, but it wouldn't surprise me if those nasty winters returned starting this year or next, as they were much more typical of the area climate.
Winters are, yes, very dreary here, and as of late the forest fires in the summer have been making summer fun pretty tough to come by, due to the smoke that settles in and chokes the valley, not to mention the people. Many recreational areas get shut down becasue of fire conditions, and rivers get closed to fishing due to water conditions.
So yea, there are some nice things about the UM and Missoula - but it's not as rosey as some would like to paint it either.
And oh yes traffic to, from and around the UM can be brutal, and parking is always big issue as I'm sure you'll find out.
The university is also very crowded, consider that the size of the campus hasn't really increased since the days when it's enrollment was half its current numbers. While some new buildings were built, they were built on the existing campus pressed inbetween the other existing building, and in the case of the new business building, it now occupies what use to be field area that was kind of an informal recreational area, that students used for play ball, or other activities.
Financially speaking - the UM has become "money hungry" the tutition and FEES are just being pounded on to the students, in the 4/5 years it takes one to graduate - the cost could and has easily double, they (UM) are just merciless in the increases they impose on the students, it never use to be that way years ago.
The UM has a reputation for promising students one thing and then doing the other - the new Recreation Annix is one such example - they UM cororsed the students into passing a vote to build it, they told the students that they wouldn't pay increase fees, and the fees would be increased years later when the annix was completly finish, as such most students thought they'd be graduated by then - SURPRISE SURPRISE, within a year or so, the student's recreation fees quadrupled, the UM has a history of this type of behavior. They also did stuff like that when I attended in the 80s, with reguards to drom and meal plan fees, if I recall they actually got sued once for trying to pull stuff like that. Anyway so much for the UM.
Oh PS: I didn't see you mentioned "art" - I took a few elective art classes there, there was a student in my class who came as an art major, he thought so much of the art department that he quit within a few weeks and went to another university. The UM art department will pretty much teach you how to smash eggs on a canvas and then pontificate on how it reflects the meaning of life....it's that kind of art department, if that is what you are into - go for it. Actually the whole UM/Missoula music/art scene is a bit "full of itself", but that is not to say that there aren't some very talented writers/artist in the area, but for the most part they don't get the respect or exposure that they really deserve, which I guess isn't all that surprising.
Last edited by JoeJoeMan; 09-29-2007 at 02:55 PM..
hippy-liberal is a good term to describe part of Msla, but I also think families could find it a really nice place to make it home as well. It would seem at times what we hear on the news media and local newspapers that it is pretty liberal-thinking here (Msla), some of us think we went 'blue' at the last election simply because of Msla, but underneath we're conservative to the core if you get right down to it. But then again, I'm a bitterrooter and that carries it's own stigma as well. So what do I know?
As a mom with elementary-aged kids, I do know we can find a lot of family-oriented things to do in and around Msla, as well as in the Bitterroot and other areas of MT. I still hold to my opinion that Msla has done a lot in the last several years to make it more family-friendly and compared to the big cities and the rat races elsewhere you can't beat living here overall.
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U of M
), and cool down to the single digits at night, with below zero night temps common in the higher valleys. But the days really aren't that bad, and depending on where you live, you'll only get a little snow to a ton of snow. Missoula for example averages only slightly more snow than Chicago, Detroit, or Boston but Bozeman averages nearly one hundred inches of snow per year, which means a major snowstorm nearly every week during the colder half of the year.
