Studied in Berkeley, got bunch of 6 figure job offers in SF, instead left Bay Area for Boston. SF is a beautiful city, but it's not worth it. It has way too many problems. Maybe in the future I can come back, but I had to take a break.
- NYC is expensive and has failing transportation, but people love the unparalleled cultural diversity and gritty tenacity of the city
- Paris is dirty and unfriendly, but the city's romance and character make it a great place to live
- London is expensive and out of touch, but its job opportunities and multiculturalism make it a better place to live
...and so on and so forth.
Someone's always going to dislike SF for a valid reason and someone's always going to hit you back with a valid reason why it's a good place. They're probably both correct.
I didn’t find the tourist-trafficked parts to be dirty. Unfriendliness has is just Parisians being “on-brand.”
SF is incredibly beautiful - land's end, the presidio, twin peaks, the fog, hwy1 in either direction - but I started to feel like the natural beauty was one of the only positive (non-professional) bits of living there.
Anyways, after a bit of travel, I'm considering Boston again for grad school. It's a really awesome city - super diverse, and the winters aren't as bad as everyone says they are. Enjoy!
I did my undergrad in Boston, and then visited for a reunion and then a friend's wedding into an extended trip where I just worked from cafes in different corners of the city -- the last of which really disenchanted me with the city after the two prior visits surrounded by friends.
Boston's academic scene is super diverse. Having the very best educational brands in the world (many of which take pride in their meritocracy and inclusive admissions) means every kind of person dreams of entering that academic scene.
But among the postgrad professionals? It becomes eerily white, with a few pockets of Asians that can be traced back to a professor or other highly respected profession centered in Boston. The chinatown is more of a chinablock. There's half a street with anything Korean. There's a reason so many people who studied in Boston end up in CA or NYC and feel happier, whether they consciously attribute it to the diversity or not (among other reasons). Boston's diversity is not diversity like what London or New York or Seattle provide. SF is barely better, just due to tech being similar to Boston's academic scene and wooing people from very diverse backgrounds, but is a wider professional field with more resources to bring people in.
That said, Boston has its perks. It's beautiful in every season in a unique way, with cobblestone streets and tree-lined avenues, quaint rustic stores, proximity to EU for an international trip, proximity to other east coast hubs like pittsburgh/DC/NYC with a bus/train ride, etc. And if you're going for grad school, there's still plenty of diversity, although self-selected by your program/school.
But diversity and affordable rents are not the perks I would consider Boston for a long-term stay post-grad.