Job Discussion Forums

[zack]

Greetings all,
Here is a question for you old Mexico Hands--oh what the hell you new ones as well!
What are the top 3 or 4 University/College towns in Mexico?
I would prefer to leave out Mx. City, Guadalajara and Monterrey because of their size.
For example, NYC, Chicago and LA all have lots of Univ./Colleges but are not known as college towns. Ann Arbor Michigan, Bloomington Indiana and Athens Georgia are.
I have heard but have no first hand knowledge that Morelia, Colima and Guanajuato have large student populations. What say you?
Secondly, What are the top 3-4 Univ./Colleges with the best music schools/institutes?
Again, I have heard that University of Veracruz in Xalapa has the best music school in Mexico. Also University Guanajuato was highly regarded.
Are there others?Thanks, you all do a great job.

[M@tt]

hi zack.
this is an interesting question. i think i raised the same one two years ago when i chronically complained about life in fortin de las flores. well, i wasn't that bad, but i'm from bloomington and i was pretty surprised by the lack of activities in much larger cities in mexico.

the reality is that there really are no college towns in mexico. not on the scale that you will find in the US. people will probably tell you that xalapa and guanajuato are college towns, and honestly, those are the first two (and only two) cities that come to mind. of the places i've been, those are certainly the only two that i would think of that way. but still, you're going to be hard-pressed to find anything like chapel hill, bloomington, boulder, etc. it just doesn't exist here. in fact, to find the quantity and quality of cultural events in one of those cities, you really need to live in a mexican city 50 times larger.

xalapa is around 250,000 people and the universidad veracruzana is there. it's a bit remote, but it's in veracruz so the people are pretty friendly and open to outsiders. it's up in the hills and the city itself is hilly, with lots of evergreens and a bit colder climate than the coast, kind of misty but never numbingly cold. it reminds me a little bit of cullowee, NC (not that anyone has been there). it's a nice town, and also the capital of the state, so there's a little bit of variety there.

guanajuato is in a bowl formed by hills also, but totally different part of the country. dry, much more colonial, and smaller. it has a sort of magical vibe about it. i really enjoyed visiting there but it's too small for me, and there was something surreal about it that made it a great place to visit but i just couldn't picture living there. the population is around 100,000 and i have a ton of pics if you are curious what it looks like.

other small cities that come to mind, that might also have a decent student population, are zacatecas, colima (a state you never ear ANYthing about while you're living here), and, ummm.... help me out someone! manzanillo? i don't really remember.

morelia is about 500,000 people and although there are students, it certainly isn't a college town. it's a very nice place and worth investigating if you're interested. it feels much smaller than half a million, and though a bit dull in my opinion, it's a nice place. querataro is a similarly sized city with lots of students that still doesn't qualify as a college town because that just isn't the focus. it's growing really quickly and the focus is on economic development. it's also closer to DF and livelier than morelia. still, great place that you might consider if they had the type of programs you're looking for.

hopefully more people will comment on this as these are obviously my biased opinions, and there are huge chunks of mexico that i'm not familiar with at all. however, my point about college towns in mexico has been confirmed by several mexicans here, especially ones who have studied in the US. the main reason is probably just that college isn't the same in mexico as in the US. what you get here is something much more low-key.

as far as music schools go, again i am a bit of a bloomington cheerleader so my perception is warped. i have no idea which schools are the best here, although i've heard xalapa mentioned.

good luck
matt

[MELEE]

The college town as it is now in the US and to a lesser extent, England and other former British colonies. Back when I was in college, in a college town, I had a conversation with a group of European exchange students about college towns and the idea of "bundling" young people up in small communities and the advantages and disadvantages of young people going to college in an otherwise small town or in a big city like New York.

The closest in Mexico would be Xalapa. Guanajato seemed too touristy to fit the bill but I was only there a couple of days and it was Semana Santa. I lived in Morelia for seven months last year and I liked it a lot. There were lots of cultural things going on, but there were a lot of different ways to find out about them, some things were just promoted on notices around down town, so if you didn't walk around down town you didn't find out about them (for found out about them the day after) other things are advertised on the radio, so you have to listen to the right radio station (there are two really good AM cultural type stations).

As for Music schools, I think UNAM has the best department in Mexicoif you are talking classical music. Mexico city is huge but I find it feels smaller than New York, because it isn't solid sky scrapers, and smaller than LA because the metro makes it easy to get around. Xalapa is know for its music school as well. and in Morelia the Music Conservatory (which I believe isn't part of the Uni but I'm not sure) is really good too.

[zack]

Matt and Melee,
Thanks for the really helpful posts.
Just the kind of insightful info. I was hoping to find. Helps to sharpen the focus.
Will take a little closer look at Xalapa and Morelia and maybe even Mx.City. G'to I have mixed feelings about perhaps its worth at least a visit.
Colima I've gotten good reports on since in has three universities and apparently a pretty reasonable cost of living.
Thanks again for your help.
Matt--hoosiermania is around the corner...and Melee....what's with the bumblebee?

[Guy Courchesne]

Mexico City might surpirse you. It's one of those places you either love or hate. Me, I love it. Mexico is a pretty young country in that they don't have the boomer generation we do in Canada and the US, so you'll find students wherever you go I think. UNAM alone in Mexico City boasts 300,000 students. They call the main campus 'university city'.

Guadalajara...I don't know. It's got 7 million or something like that but it's always felt small to me. That might be for living in DF, but Toronto has always seemed much larger than GDL, a fairly provincial city. Nice place to go.

[MikeyG]

It might be worth checking out Oaxaca City too. I don't know about its music schools or the student population but there seemed to be a lot of students there and the place as a whole has a very bohemian vibe too it.
I know I met plenty musicians there and I never ran out of things to do in the evening...or at four in the morning for that matter.

[M@tt]

i second guy's emotion. if you lived by CU (ciudad universitaria in DF), which is almost outside the city (not technically but it's at the end of the metro line and a good 30 minutes from downtown), it might be a little bit like living in a college town. at least you would have that ratio of students to normal people. ooh, another idea is that if you studied at UNAM you could live in Coyoacan, which has a very bohemian vibe to it and is like a little town, conveniently located on the same metro line between UNAM and downtown. that's probably what i would do in your position, if you are interested in DF.

the only problem with colima is that it's way out in BFE. nobody goes there because it's not on the way to anything and it's small. if you want isolation, that would be a good pick. xalapa has a similar feeling, but not quite so bad as it's only a few hours from veracruz and puebla.

by the way, i'm totally immune to hoosier hysteria, although i did wet my pants when they finally fired bobby knight.

[zack]

Thanks Matt, Guy and MikeyG.
So its Mexico City and Morelia in and Xalapa,G'to and Colima out and check out Guadalajara and Oaxaca City.
Matt, how expensive is it to live in Coyoacan? How much to rent a place similar to the one you now have with same amenities?
Several years ago I had a small apt. for $275usd on Nayarit in Colonia Roma Sur for about a year.
Area was changing pretty fast however. Have no idea what went on or is going on now?
Guy, is the area around Univ. Guad. similar to UNAM in the DF? How is cost of living on the average in Guad.
I assume that DF is most expensive city followed by Guad. and then Morelia and/or Oaxaca City? That sound about right? Thanks again.

[MELEE]

[Guy Courchesne]

Df is one of those places that for it's size, can be the cheapest or the most expensive. I've found most things in DF to be just a tad cheaper than in GDL. Rent is the kicker...Coyoacan is expensive...populated by expats and foreign company types. Just along its edges the prices come down, but it's still going to be $400 usd and up. Closer to UNAM would be cheaper.

Not familiar with the area around UG, sorry.

Roma Sur is ever changing, as is Del Valle and area. You can still find cheaper places but they are putting in a lot of new condos.

[M@tt]

i bet i'll end up living in one of the places guy mentioned (roma sur or del valle). i'm sorry but i don't know anything about rent in coyoacan. i have a friend who was born and raised there, and i'm actually going to a party at his house tomorrow night. i can ask him and any other people residing in the area what rents are like, and i'll report back later this weekend.

DF can be cheap, really, but you have to look and look and look, or you have to accept living in a less desirable area. i always like to cite anahuac, because i worked there and because it's right near the rest of this stuff (next to polanco, anzures, san rafael, and cuauhtemoc). you can get apartments there for 2000, but even THAT place is starting to shape up a little. i suppose that's good news for everyone but the scary people who are getting pushed out of the vecindarios.

[Guy Courchesne]

San Rafael and Santa Maria la Rivera are overlooked gems. Close to everything, but not in the developers' sights quite yet. I've been looking on and off for an older building round about there to buy f I ever get the enganche together. Rents are still reasonable and there are quite a few schools and English book shops in the area.


There's this fantastic little Russian restaurant you should check out, Matt, if you frequent the area, at the corner of Eje 1 norte and Fresno. It's called La Peque�a Rusia.

[M@tt]

i keep hearing that about those two neighborhoods, although when pressed almost everyone will say that san rafael is really better than santa maria. in all honestly, if i were going to choose which side of mexico-tacuba to be on, i would take the south side in a heartbeat. i don't even know the north side that well, but i'd rather be closer to reforma and all that stuff, rather than north of the blue line where there's basically no major thoroughfare. does that make sense? i feel like after living on top of metro hidalgo (which is arguably the most useful metro station in the city), at the intersection of mexico-tacuba, reforma, and eje guerrero, anywhere i go from here will be less accessible. i really hate the idea of walking more than 2 minutes to a bus stop or metro station. even the idea of transferring is kind of annoying to me, since i almost never have to do it. that's one big drawback of san rafael. a lot of it isn't very close to the transport lines.

today i was talking to a mexican friend and he told me that he though of la roma as "conflictivo". i was a bit surprised by that. he was basically saying that it's not such a nice place, and he'd rather live in del valle.

guy, you could start smaller than a whole building, you know...

[Guy Courchesne]

That makes perfect sense...I know what you mean. The ideal spot to live, when you have to travel around this city without a car, is fairly close to a hub metro that's also near an eje, so you have a few options.

When I first arrived in Mexico, I lived in San Raphael, pretty close to San Cosme station. I was within 2 blocks of Insurgentes, 3 of Reforma, and 5 of San Cosme, which by pesero gets you al centro quickly. I pretty much lived on that blue line metro and yeah, Hidalgo is a busy place no?

Roma as conflicted? That surprises me too, though it is big enough to offer a lot of difference one street to the next. Along and around Alvaro Obregon, you've got some nice shops, a weekend art market, fairly upscale condos. The only dodgy area I can think of is the part that borders Doctores, fronted by Cuauhtemoc Ave/Eje.

You know what the buildings in the area look like Matt? Not typical single family houses, but short apartment blocks with big courtyards in the middle? That's what I'm thinking of for a purchase...either something mid-size to make something like a hostel or much smaller for my family only. The prices there for something with 400 to 750 m2 of construction are not bad compared to Cuauhtemoc, Roma, or Del Valle.

[M@tt]

please buy something large enough for 7 people so we can start filming ESL Real World Mexico City! i'm sure Televisa will buy it if MTV isn't interested. later we could release the uncensored version on DVD and rake in extra profits.
everyone wants to see their english teacher getting out of the shower!