apropos

Berkeley is almost perfectly livable without a car, but it gets awesome with a bicycle. Also, San Francisco, a city of 1million people, is a 20 minute bus/train ride away from Berkeley, can be crossed on feet in about one hour, and has a fine public transport system.

I would pick the San Francisco Bay Area schools (Berkeley or Stanford) for great culture, diversity, food, weather, great entertainment opportunities in places like San Francisco as well as all over the rest of the bay, and numerous terrific weekend destinations (Lake Tahoe area, the wine country, something like five national parks within reach, incl. Yosemite, Monterey, Big Sur, great hiking, great skiing, etc). There is really no other place like this. But alas, the bar for getting into Berkeley and Stanford is really high.

Second choices? Probably LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, or Seattle perhaps.

Third choice: small, progressive college towns in nice natural settings like Boulder, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz.

I would advise anyone who is considering Purdue, specially for PhD, to visit the town first just to make sure you like it here. (unfortunately, the current weather does not do justice to the aesthetics of campus. it is really nice architecturally in my opinion). I am a beer and food kind of person, and since someone asks about this, I'll post my 2cents. The food scene is decent, including various kinds of ethnic food. But first, let's get one thing straight. This is not the West Coast, so don't expect top L.A.-grade avocado sandwiches, kabobs, sushi, or Korean BBQ here, but we have a little bit of every type of restaurant in this town for both casual and fine dining, and new restaurants are opening all the time. I believe just in the last couple of months a new Vietnamese restaurant opened nearby, another Hookah bar (Egyptian, they serve food too), some mexican food place, noodle eatery, etc. There are some good dining options across the river in Lafayette (I just discovered Arni's Loading Dock themed restaurant there, yum).

Regarding bars, there some nice bars in downtown Lafayette. Lafayette's historic downtown, a 15 minute walk away from campus, is well preserved and is a home to many restaurants, antique shops, bars, etc. Among them there are two bars with regularly scheduled live music events, the oldest officially registered bar in Indiana (Knickerbocker Saloon), a microbrewery with damn good brews (Lafayette Brewing Company), and a bar that offers over 50 different types of beer from all over the world on tap (Chumley's). The only problem with some of them is that smoking is still allowed indoors in Lafayette (but I think this is not going to last for long), unlike in West Lafayette. Before crossing the bridge, on the West Lafayette side, there is a bar called Scotty's Brewhouse which again has something like a couple dozen different brews on tap. There is also an Irish pub that serves a variety of Irish beers. As you get closer to campus, things get trashier and dirtier. The Chauncey Hill area has something like four bars which are packed on weekends with (often drunk) undergrads who sip cheap macrobews. I don't really like places where my shoes stick to the ground because of spilled beer, so I don't go there that often.

I actually _like_ living near Chauncey Hill area. Food, shopping, movie theaters, campus, everything is close from there. I like being a 10 minute walk away from my office. I lived in Crestview apartments 2 and 3, and there is a large number of graduate students there. If there are some neighbors that get too noisy on weekends, just complain to management or police. Yes, this is no Chicago or Berkeley, but at least you won't get mugged near campus, and you can spend only about $450/month on shared 2-bedroom with utilities.

There is a huge mall in Lafayette, Best Buy, Borders, Barnes and Noble and whatnot. Purdue Convocations brings very good cultural events to campus (so next week we have Spanish Flamenco dancers). There are about three decent state parks a car drive away. Chicago is 2 hour drive away.

On the downside, of course there is not as much to do here as say in Chicago and there is less culture. Being here over the winter break can get very boring. It gets cold but there is not one decent skiing resort within 500 miles (Indiana is flat). If you're single, finding a significant other will be difficult because most people come here only for the school then leave as soon as they're done. Things get kind of spread out as you get away from campus, so having a car is nice. There are several grocery stores but they're all at least two miles away from where I live and there isn't one upscale store like Whole Foods.

On the neutral side, this place is not significantly worse or better than a typical Big 10 college town. Besides Evanston, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, and Madison, all Big 10 university towns are probably more or less the same. I have visited Bloomington and East Lansing and talked to people who lived in Urbana Champaign, and those cities didn't strike me as being significantly better or worse than the Greater Lafayette. Any differences among them are only marginal.

PS: Yes, it is possible to live on graduate student stipend and even save money for things like a nice vacation once a year. Tip: share an apartment and watch your spending. Make your own food at least once per day. Make friends with $1 spaghetti box and $2 spaghetti sauce can*.

*Certainly add some healthy foods to this mix or you will get sick.