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[RELOCATION ON] Charleston, SC
Smurph
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So here is my situation:
Graduated from college a little over a year ago and immediately started working at the same office that I interned at for two summers during school. It was close to home and a good opportunity so something of a no brainer for me. I love the people I work with and I love the work environment. I would probably stay here for my whole career if that were possible. Unfortunately I don't think it will be. When I started we had about 25 people working in the office. Over the course of the past year we have shrunk down to less than 10. The vast majority of them left on their own, usually out of fear of being laid off, but there were a few lay offs as well. I actually received a lay off notice myself in August. Fortunately my boss changed his mind and revoked the notice a day later, but it made things pretty serious in my mind.
The company is huge and has offices all over, so I started applying to positions I qualified for when the layoff talked started. This lead to a bunch of phone interviews, a couple on-site interviews and exactly one job offer. The job would be in Charleston, SC and would be identical to my current job compensation wise, which is fine (cost of living differences would be negligible). I currently live and work in Troy, MI which is a suburb of Detroit. They are offering to give me $3k towards relocation expenses.
I liked Charleston when I was down there for the interview but I just don't know how I would do living there. I'm a city boy from the Midwest and Charleston is very much the South. Also, I know exactly zero people there and I can't expect coworkers to become my new outside-work friends. My girlfriend of four years is here in Michigan for one more year of college, and then the plan is for her to move to wherever I am. I'm not too worried about the relationship, we've done long distance before and made it through.
The other thing complicating the decision for me is that fact that my job here in Michigan is safe for the moment. I could try and ride out the storm here, where I know I am happy and don't really want to leave. I just don't know how long my job will be here if the office doesn't turn things around. Another problem is that the work I do here is not exactly in line with my job description a lot of the time. So if I do end up getting laid off later on I won't be able to say I have X years of Software Engineering experience because a lot of what I do here ends up being IT and Systems Engineering. I know the new job would be all Software and thus lead to higher quality experience on my resume.
So I could move away and have a secure job and be better off career wise, but also be alone and rarely see all the people I love. Or I could stay where I'm at and be happy, but roll the dice big time on my career. I want to be able to go to grad school or buy a house, but it's difficult to do that here when I don't know if another layoff is around the corner. I would be able to do those things with the new job, but I'm pretty scared of being thousands of miles away from home and everyone I know. What do you guys think is the right choice?
Also if anyone actually lives in the Charleston area and can give me advise on where to live, what the area's upsides and downsides are, that would be great. I know I could do a lot worse than Charleston as far as places to live go.
General advice on relocation, making new friends while alone in a new town is also welcome.
Graduated from college a little over a year ago and immediately started working at the same office that I interned at for two summers during school. It was close to home and a good opportunity so something of a no brainer for me. I love the people I work with and I love the work environment. I would probably stay here for my whole career if that were possible. Unfortunately I don't think it will be. When I started we had about 25 people working in the office. Over the course of the past year we have shrunk down to less than 10. The vast majority of them left on their own, usually out of fear of being laid off, but there were a few lay offs as well. I actually received a lay off notice myself in August. Fortunately my boss changed his mind and revoked the notice a day later, but it made things pretty serious in my mind.
The company is huge and has offices all over, so I started applying to positions I qualified for when the layoff talked started. This lead to a bunch of phone interviews, a couple on-site interviews and exactly one job offer. The job would be in Charleston, SC and would be identical to my current job compensation wise, which is fine (cost of living differences would be negligible). I currently live and work in Troy, MI which is a suburb of Detroit. They are offering to give me $3k towards relocation expenses.
I liked Charleston when I was down there for the interview but I just don't know how I would do living there. I'm a city boy from the Midwest and Charleston is very much the South. Also, I know exactly zero people there and I can't expect coworkers to become my new outside-work friends. My girlfriend of four years is here in Michigan for one more year of college, and then the plan is for her to move to wherever I am. I'm not too worried about the relationship, we've done long distance before and made it through.
The other thing complicating the decision for me is that fact that my job here in Michigan is safe for the moment. I could try and ride out the storm here, where I know I am happy and don't really want to leave. I just don't know how long my job will be here if the office doesn't turn things around. Another problem is that the work I do here is not exactly in line with my job description a lot of the time. So if I do end up getting laid off later on I won't be able to say I have X years of Software Engineering experience because a lot of what I do here ends up being IT and Systems Engineering. I know the new job would be all Software and thus lead to higher quality experience on my resume.
So I could move away and have a secure job and be better off career wise, but also be alone and rarely see all the people I love. Or I could stay where I'm at and be happy, but roll the dice big time on my career. I want to be able to go to grad school or buy a house, but it's difficult to do that here when I don't know if another layoff is around the corner. I would be able to do those things with the new job, but I'm pretty scared of being thousands of miles away from home and everyone I know. What do you guys think is the right choice?
Also if anyone actually lives in the Charleston area and can give me advise on where to live, what the area's upsides and downsides are, that would be great. I know I could do a lot worse than Charleston as far as places to live go.
General advice on relocation, making new friends while alone in a new town is also welcome.
Smurph on
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One of the nice things about Charleston is that there are ALL kinds of outdoor activities and groups you can take part in. I also found out that I really enjoy several things that I never was able to experience back home, like sailing and other ocean bound sports. There are also all kinds of historic monuments and places that everyone should see.
Knowing where your potential new employer is located at there will vastly influence where I'd recommend looking to live. With you having said software engineering I'm going to guess either Daniel Island or North Charleston. If I'm correct in thinking those, then I'd suggest looking in the Mt. Pleasant or the northern part of North Charleston.
I'm not sure what housing costs are like in Troy, but from what I've seen in Charleston a decent apartment will run $900+/month for a small one. Houses are somewhat expensive until you get out to the Summerville area (about 30-45 minutes from downtown).
On the down side, the summers are brutal. 90+ degrees and 70-80% humidity pretty much constantly, the winters aren't cold but they are kinda dreary as it rains a LOT. Spring and Fall last about a week, in February and October respectively.
Having said all that,at some point I would like to live in Charleston. It is one of my favorite American cities.
Don't live in North Charleston. DON'T DO IT.
That's all I need to stress.
Mt P is very nice though. Pricy. I live in Summerville, which is the place to live unless you can get in the city itself. The only problem here is catching bad traffic on i26 going/coming workhours. 7-8AM and 4-6 pm suck.
Also don't bother with Monck's corner. low income area etc. Goose creek is full of navy, and wouldn't recomment it either.
I'm also hoping to be able to go to grad school at C of C at some point. Any experience with that school? I guess this is big because getting a masters is a major motivation for me to find a stable job.
I'll post the city paper link in case you haven't seen it yet. http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/Home
Good: Outdoors - for everything, beaches like Folly, great weather if you don't mind heat/humidity, low cost of living, fan-FUCKING-tastic food and restaurants, tons of stuff to do, big arts scene. Lots of stuff, but it's not a big sprawl of a city. You can get good mustard-based BBQ. Lots of transplants like yourself. Downtown is awesome. With the college there's a huge party scene and lots of mingling of all types and ages of people. Low crime.
Bad: left over racism - especially against mexican/south American immigrants, big "good Old boy network", low pay checks, Charleston is quite blue but everywhere else is hard core Sara-Palin-lovin red staters. The state leaders are a bad joke. i-26/526 blows and it's the 'only' road in town. Tourist economy that leave not a lot of great jobs. Stinky ass papermill. In my mind the worst thing is that entire state's economy is in the shitter - over 10% unemployment. Public transport, except for downtown, blows.
There are parts of North Charleston that are very poor and neglected and where most people would be uncomfortable walking around at night. Same way with west ashley and Mt. P. There are others that aren't bad. The northwoods mall-area is north charleston, that's far from a crime ridden cesspool. Many people in 'professional' type jobs prefer to live in West Ashley or Summerville/Goose Creek.
Regardless of what you decide, I wouldn't plan on staying where you are. Lay-off notice that got canceled? Dude, you are living on borrowed time in a terrible economy. I would jump at the first solid thing that came up. Which would seem to be this.
Edit - saw the above post. Yes, 526 will suck. I've heard good things about UofC, but haven't personally attended classes. Downtown nice place is totally doable, with the bonus of going against the flow of traffic so commuting will be better. Depending on where you are street parking isn't actually that bad. You're right about summerville. "a fun place for a guy in his twenties by himself" you need to live downtown, in west ashley, or way out on Folly or Isle of Palms.
Edit: thanks for the newspaper link.
$900 is more at the lower end downtown for a private apt, but completely doable if you look around. If you could score a decent carriage house you'd be set. You can take a quick look here http://charleston.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=downtown. A lot of the cheaper ones are geared for students - converted houses from the 1800s - and you'll see those 2/3/4 bedroom places. Neat stuff, beautiful construction like plaster walls, 10' tin-plated ceilings and hardwood everywhere but you may have to put up with all the stuff from older houses; creaky floors, older electrical systems, etc. I lived in one place where the windows were so old the glass had started to run.
In the other areas (west ash-tray, north chuck) $900 will get you a nice modern 1 or 2 bedroom apartment. Out in summerville or goose creek $900 is about a mortgage payment on a house in suburbia.
I'd take a look at the google maps - Chucktown's a peninsula. The areas around CofC and MUSC will be full of students. Below broad street is all rich people and where you can find carriage houses. meeting street and king street below calhoun are a mix of touristy stuff and college kids. Upper king is the new hot area - just getting fully gentrified and lots of younger professionals and students. Above the crosstown (route 17) is full of poor people and just starting to get gentrified. Between 17 and 526, you probably don't want to live there.*
* - the new downtown North Charleston area is actually nice, and there are some great parts of park circle, but it's only three block long and there's lots of "not-nice" only a few blocks away. Use caution.
Don't rent a trailer unless you're really comfortable driving it 2000 miles, and also be aware that interstates can have a lot of turns and hills through Appalachia, which runs right between MI and SC. If you want a full service move, I had good results with ubid.com. YMMV. I would take a serious look at your stuff, and consider paring it down to what you can fit in your own car, then replacing the rest in SC. I just moved a month ago, and $2k was the smallest bid I got to move my stuff, which was about equal to what it would have cost to replace all the furniture anyway. PODS and similar services are cheaper, but if you're moving alone you'll need someone to help load and unload on both ends, which isn't very convenient if you don't know anyone in SC yet.
If you're taking I-77, Tamarack in Beckley, WV is the best meal you'll have on the whole trip.
So... IT job with office off 526. you probably work at the old navy base, the weapon station, or mantech corporate. Hope it's not mantech...
thing 1 - If you enjoy food & beer, check out http://www.tedsbutcherblock.com/. They have monthly tasting dinners at the shop that are wonderful and a cool way to meet people that also dig food&beer. The beer guy is amazing - a couple at a table mentioned going to some town in holland, and he knew of a craft brewery in that town that gave tours.
thing 2 - If you enjoy hitting people, check out http://grandchampmma.com/. Great bunch of dudes.
thing 3 - If you are a comic/book/CCG/minature/D&D nerd, check out http://greendragoncharleston.com/index.htm. Scott and Adrianna are some of the nicest people you could meet and the shop hosts games of all sorts - the massive warhammer40k spreads they did were awesome.
Oh and lastly - may want to keep this away from the Girlfriend.
It's prevalent enough that when two friends from NY came down they became seriously self conscious even though both of them were quite cute. "you didn't warn us everyone was so hot!".
One other issue is that I will be bringing 2 cats with me. My girlfriend is moving back in with her parents for the 1 year of school she has left and her keeping the cats is not going to work. Is there any way to make driving 1000 miles with cats in the car not suck? What do I do with them if I end up needing to split the 14 hour trip over 2 days? I figure I can get cat carriers if needed but keeping them in there for an entire day seems cruel.