Houston

I have never heard anything bad about the suburbs (Katy, Spring, The Woodlands, Cy-Fair)...were you looking more towards the medical center?

Sugarland was voted recently as #3 in Best Places to Live in America.

I LOOOVE Sugar Land! It's sooo nice.

If you want to live in the suburbs (sugarland/katy/woodlands) plan on driving for an hour if you are going to be working in the med center. Does traffic stress you out? need a shorter commute? There are some nice places in montrose/ heights, which are like 15 min. away from the medical center. Though, in houston, anything inside the loop (the area inside the 610 loop) is going to be pretty high. It can be reasonable if you are renting though. Make sure to check out the place first. I don't like to drive, so I steer clear of anything outside the loop, and anything in the Galleria area. Here are a couple of good resources to look for places to live: http://houstonpress.com/ you can find a lot of individual renter/sellers in there
http://chron.com/ the "big" newspaper in houston.
http://www.thegreensheet.com/default.aspx a free add based paper that circulates here.


there is also a website that shows you how bad/good traffic is in an area that you are planning to live. Remember, Houston is HUGE. If you live near only one freeway, chances are you are going to HAVE to take that freeway everyday. Check the freeways at around the time you expect to be going to work. (It's a live map) http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/
Good luck. Hope it helps!

medical center, west university place

I agree with Jaky, it all depends if you like to commute in traffic, or want to live and work in the suburbs. There are many hospitals in the burbs - The Woodlands has several, Cy-Fair/1960 has several, Sugarland, Clear Lake, Conroe, etc. Where are you looking to live? I have 8 years nursing and initially took a pay cut when i moved from the 'med center' to the Woodlands but within a year i was making more. Now I would never make that drive and deal with the traffic again.
And for coolvibes, is West U. compatible with a new grad salary?

If you work at the Med Center, you don't have to drive. There are park and rides all over town that have bus services to the MC and hospitals subsidize fares.
I live in Clearlake and it is about 20 minutes, but takes more than hour to drive. I ride the bus and it is a nice 30 minute nap time for me.

Don't even think about working at the suburban hospitals. They are all about sucking up to the doctors and the nurses are very territorial/racist.
Med Center is the place to be with at least 3 Magnet hospitals and more that are working towards it.