[RWebb]

I did a post-doc there for 4 years (biology).

Bl. is much much nicer than the surrounding area. The IQ drops about 40 pts. when you hit the city limits.

IU is a pretty strong school. The Music School competes with Julliard. There is a fair amt. of music around town, a good beer pub, and a good ice cream place (started by a physics professor who dropped out). Used to have a great pizza place, but they lost their ovens in the early 1980s - so so now.

Molecular Biol. is top notch (top 4 in US - competes with MIT, etc.). Env'l Chemistry is also very good - a buddy of mine did his post-doc there in that. Not sure about the other sciences. What are you interested in?

The climate sucks - I mean sucks totally. Cold as H in the winter but no snow so you can't ski. Hot as H in the summer and terribly humid.

You are not too far from Indy but not much going on thre re restaurants, clubs, music or anything really. You'll have to go to Chicago for night life or anything much. And Chicago is great only as long as you avoid comparing it to Boston, NYC, LA or SFO.

There are some nice browns in the Fall in ... Brown County of course. Decent twisty roads. But you're better off inNew England or Colorado golden aspen country.

What do you want tho? That's what we need to know to tell you the good & bad.

Bottomline: there are worse places (Kansas, Iowa, Miss. etc.) but there are tons and tons of much nicer places to live.

There is a reason why the cost of living is high on both coasts! The Quality of life there is much much better.