Best place to go to university in USA? (Esp. California)

[Flushed]

1) Let me put it this way, I live with two post-docs. One of them recently got his Ph.D. in Boston (yeah, the land of hellish climate and women of questionable attractiveness) and he WANTS TO GO BACK! He takes trips there at least every other week (there's motivation considering that it's 6 hour trip). Bear in mind, this is an attractive, well-adjusted, social guy; he has friends here. He just hates it. The other morning he complained that he woke up before his alarm at 7 AM b/c out of sheer boredom he fell asleep at 11. We had a respectful moment of silence.


2) Seriously, Princeton is a pretty, small town and not bad for undergraduates. Undergrads have their own social structure and their own bar-type places (i.e. eating clubs). Grad students/post-docs, on the other hand, have only one real bar to go to. And it's pretty bad. There's only about five restaurants and they get old quickly; the closest big movie theater is a drive (you better have a car). There are no museums, opera houses, galleries, or any other cultural venues to speak of. The cost of living is close to that of Boston or another city. Atlantic City is an hour and a half away (too far to drive on a regular basis if you're going to do legitimate work here); NYC is a little over an hour by train (also a bit far). The climate is unpredictable and often uncomfortable (too humid in the summer and cold/windy in the winter).

Bottom line: if you care about your quality of life as much as you do about academics, Princeton is not the right choice for graduate/post graduate work. I'm guilty of academic arrogance as much as the next person, but it's not worth throwing six years of your life away being miserable; especially if being unhappy interferes with your ability to work.

- Natasha
If you have specific questions, I'm all ears.