Orange (city?) student transfer (Long Beach, Santa Ana: best city, cheap apartment, rentals)

[donut001]

Well I did a search for "orange" and got about 900 threads so..

I am a student with a few schools I've looked at in the socal area. One of them was in SFV (which I already posted about) and the other 5 are in orange county. Santiago Canyon college was one of the schools I was looking at and it is in Orange. I've read on a few other threads that Orange is a nice city to live in, and looked up some city data on it. Any advice on specific parts of town that are generally safe (possibly the whole town is safe lol)

I've also noticed that Santa Ana college (another school I looked at) was kind of in range (if I were to live in orange)? I've been told that a 5 mile drive can take about 15 minutes. I've also read on the forums that Santa Ana is not such a nice place to live, is this true?

And I would say all in all, my only REAL concern is if this whole excursion will be livable at all. I plan on finding a room mate (and am looking ahead of time) to live with, and I'm already sending resumes to alot of places and as much as I hate to do it, am trying to go through staffing agencies (at least for the time being). Really trying to plan this out well so I dont end up running back home in 4 months.

People that live here told me that if I have some kind of trade skill (not just "Would you like fries with that?") that I should be able to live as a student (with roommates, etc.) without having to live paycheck to paycheck. That is my biggest concern, any thoughts?

Oh and my tradeskill would be CNC Machining.

thanks in advance, and thanks for the advice on the other thread (if anyone from that one will be swinging by here)

[bhcompy]

what major? Lots of local schools, Santa Ana, Santiago Canyon, etc are community colleges. Cal State Long Beach is closeby and a 4 year college. Cal State Fullerton as well. UC Irvine is another. There are also local tradeschools if you're looking into something like that.

[donut001]

right now i am only worried about a 2 year school until i can get settled and get my residency established, then i am looking at going to UC Irvine, thats the plan right now.

But what I was asking is how is the area in Orange (the city). It is close to one of the schools I was looking for and seems to have quite a few machining/light industrial work nearby.

Im just kind of concerned about if I am going to be able to maintain the quality of life I have right now (busy, with school and work, and not worrying about if im going to go broke or not) or if it will be worse.

[bhcompy]

depends on if you're going to use some type of student loans or expect your income from parttime work to supplement you. there can be inexpensive stuff found in orange and surrounding areas as far as rent, but life is expensive.

your cheapest bet will be to see if someone has a room or a backhouse for rent rather than looking for a studio or something. you're looking around 700-900/mo for 1bedroom/small studios at least in the decent or less quality areas i would say

[fipster]

A lot of transfer students from outside of the OC goes to Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

[donut001]

Working full time wont be an issue. I was a fulltime student and fulltime at work last semester. Granted, work was flexible because the boss was cool but I still got around 35 (or more hours) a week.

I dont know if i left that out in the original post sorry

[Coldjensens]

Old town orange is an awesome place to live. There are a lot of rentals, houses, small apartment complexes and granny flats built above garages. Old Town is a very walkable/bikeable area with lots of neat places to go.

There are some rougher areas to the north west of old town and in various places Northeast and east. Not too many. Most of orange is pretty nice. You will know a rough area when you see it, just look around, especially on a Friday or Saturday night.

Santiago college is a bit out of town though. If you live in Old Town, it would be a long bike ride to the college. Not bad in a car. There are some very nice areas out near santiago college (Orange Park acres and Anaheim Hills, probably too pricey for you there though).

Santiago and Santa Ana college are related, so you could take classes at either one. Santa Ana college is pretty close to old town Orange. It may even be closer than Santiago.

Santa Ana has some good parts and some bad parts. If you could find a rental you could consider Floral Park, West Floral Park or French Park. The artists village area is pretty neat, but it is downtown. You need to be careful there, but I walked and rode my bike through downtown literally thousands of times without any problem.

You might want to go visit the colleges and ask for suggestions, but you will get a lot of differing opinions based on personal experiences, some of them bizzarre.

[Ryanman]

I love Orange, because I think it's the best city I have ever visited though. However some people say Santa Ana is more "lively" and they'd prefer to live there because of that. I think you should have a visit of the local places as first and then consider where you'd really want to stay. In my case, I have rented a quite cheap apartment with a 6 months lease, so I could have also looked around for other possible nicer apartments...

Take care!


Moderator cut: advertising not allowed

[donut001]

SAC was another school I had looked at as well. Ill be there to visit early next month to hopefully set things in stone. I just hate when they are up in the air like this :/

Plus being unfamiliar with the whole area doesnt help lol.