Moving to SLC from CA (SLC or Washington DC bigger adjustment?) (Salt Lake City: school, university)

[calswim]

Hi there,

I am a student who is considering to move to SLC to study medicine at The University of Utah. I am single, 20s, Chinese American, love the outdoors, looking for a slower pace from California and the biggest thing I am concerned about is the large LDS population. I know I will meet great people at my program, but are people outside the university setting pretty accepting? Will it be hard for me to make friends outside of school?

I am also consider Washington DC. Which one will be the bigger adjustment from California? What are the pros and cons for moving to utah?

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by calswim

Hi there,

I am a student who is considering to move to SLC to study medicine at The University of Utah. I am single, 20s, Chinese American, love the outdoors, looking for a slower pace from California and the biggest thing I am concerned about is the large LDS population. I know I will meet great people at my program, but are people outside the university setting pretty accepting? Will it be hard for me to make friends outside of school?

Seriously... If you read a post pretty much like yours, except that it was on a forum where roughly half of the posters were Chinese American and it said, "The biggest thing I am concerned abou is the large Chinese American population..." what would your response be? How would it make you feel?

Now, to answer your question: If you move to Salt Lake City, you will find the outdoor recreation to be unparalleled. You will also find a slower paced life. As to what you find in terms of the population outside of the university setting, that's up to you.

[UtahRoots]

Since you said that one of your reasons for moving was looking for a slower pace, I would say that eliminates Washington D.C.

Washington is a lot of things, but "slow paced" isn't one of them. Transportation is easier there. There's a lot to do. There would be tremendous diversity. But it would be crazy hectic all the time.

Salt Lake has a lot to offer. The fact that it is a university town, and the fact that most of your social life would probably revolve around the university community, means that you probably would not have much difficulty finding and making friends with people from diverse backgrounds. And you know what? Some of them will be LDS. Don't let your assumptions make your choices for you. You probably hate it when people assume that because you're Chinese-American you are smarter or more "academic" than everyone else. Maybe you really are smart, but I imagine that it bugs you when people assume anything at all about you because of your ethnicity. It's the same here. Just come with an open mind and don't listen to what people tell you. When you hear "Mormons are..", let little red flags start waving in your mind - because whatever comes after those two words is bald-faced stereotyping. As you read the posts on this forum, notice the underlying tone in the messages from people who aren't happy here. They aren't happy people period.