Taking a job in a new city: What concerns should you have?

You have been presented with a job in a new city. You won’t know anybody there, and the city…You have been presented with a job in a new city. You won’t know anybody there, and the city isn’t particularly known for being a center for 20-somethings. How should you go about making your decision to move there?

Rosie McKinley: Well, you wouldn’t have to pay me much.

Moving to a new city is ideal. Cities are great because of their distinct museums, parks and quirks. And as much as I love Pittsburgh, I’ve been here and done that. I’ve learned about Andy Warhol and seen the dinosaurs in Carnegie Museum hundreds of times. I’m tired of running the same trails in Schenley, and I’ve eaten enough Primanti Bros. Doesn’t mean I don’t like fries on my sandwich, but it’s time for a new city.

I am also tired of being in a center for 20-somethings. It’s hard to meet an established, moneymaking partner when your social setting is Hemingway’s or Peter’s. And as a soon-to-be graduate, I’m more interested in finding an employed silver fox or cougar than a starving philosophy major scraping by on half-off and PBR.

Speaking of Hemingway’s, during Blue Moon Wednesday, I ran into Luke — last seen in the basement of Pi Lam freshman year. Moving to a new city and not knowing anyone means you finally get away from all those mistakes you made in the drunken weekend blurs of semesters past. Cheers to anonymity!

Mostly, I want a job in a new city because I’m tired of being a blonde communications major from outside Philly and ready to be that exotic gal from the East Coast who was cool enough to move here.

Nick Stamatakis: Good points, but you’re discounting how difficult it can be to develop large social networks in new cities.

If you are in an organized internship program, a college campus or a high school, you are constantly interacting with many new people almost accidentally. If it took you four years to build a support network in this city, it will take you way more than four years to build a support network of the same size in a new city.

Doesn’t this personal cost demand some kind of income premium? Thrust into a new city, you’ll be faced with a situation where family and automatic relationships are no longer guaranteed. Regardless of how socially savvy you may be, or how good looking you feel, you may end up more lonely.

If you are in a city strongly tilted toward younger people, this won’t be rough for long. But try to think for a second about the simple logistics of meeting people in a city with many older workers. Are you supposed to join a bridge club? Are you destined for bingo nights, reading groups and slow, small bars for social interactions?

RM: As with any risk, when the risk of encountering social pressures is heightened, so is the reward.

When we move as a group, with organized internship programs or highly organized study abroad programs, we are provided with a structure that allows us to make friends easily with people in the same program. Yet such structure inherently restricts us; we won’t be forced to expand. We won’t explore as independents. We become the people who study abroad in Spain but don’t learn much Spanish because we’re too busy with Americans in our program. Sticking to our own age group or culture defeats the purpose of moving around at all.

Loneliness be damned, I am moving to a new city where I can experience new things. Even if a city isn’t famous for being a hot spot of the young, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Take Roanoke, Va., — which ranks with Pittsburgh as one of the AARP’s top “Cities to Retire to.” Roanoke is well known for its hiking trails, independent movie theater, low cost of living and symphony orchestra — things all age groups can enjoy. As long as you are looking for more than bars and hipster coffee shops, you don’t need to be in a young city to have fun.

NS: I’m not saying people should stay in Oakland when they graduate; there is an obligation to leave your undergraduate home to avoid Ryan Lochte-style adult adolescence. The last acceptable day to go to P-Caf is graduation day.

But you’re romanticizing things. Cities without a large, active 20-something scene don’t suddenly become deposits of authenticity. Roanoke isn’t full of friendly 40-year-old ship builders and cowboys waiting to tell you stories about the good old days to slowly pull back a curtain to an exotic, new lifestyle.

It’s easier to integrate into new lifestyles if you have people you know or can at least familiarize yourself with. Get dumped into Billings, Mont., and we would “explore as independents” far more with like-minded people. The stylized ideal of an adventurous youth slashing through a jungle to encounter and befriend ancient wisdom is wrong; more accurate is the vision of two young adults snickering at the guy in the corner explaining noodling (a popular Oklahoma pastime where you stick your hand into river mud hoping to catch a catfish), and then maybe going to do it.

RM: Maybe you’re right. Maybe our generation is far too separated from the dreams of independence that conceived this nation. Perhaps the crippling fear of being alone means we do always need constant companionship. Maybe that’s why we find ourselves continuously connected to each other via social media.

But I’ve never been that girl who needs a friend to go to the bathroom with. I don’t want a life partner until I’m at least 35. I’ve never wanted my identity tied to someone else’s.

Moving to a new city alone grants the opportunity of complete independence. It’s a place where no one will base his opinion of me on who my roommates are or who I’m in a picture with on Hemingway’s wall. Stripped from friend groups and comfortable relationships, a new city is where we have identities that are solely and completely ours. It’s been a fun four years of giggling at the guy talking noodling, but I’m ready to be defined without them.

NS: You win for comparing America’s youth with the dreams of the Founding Fathers. Oh, to have your rhetorical flair.