I saw Kennesaw State University but I didn’t think to look at the location part. So sorry! 
I went to Atlanta once for a friend’s wedding and thought it was a great place to live! So much happening there!
The loving are the daring. Dare to love and be loved! :o
I’ve given it a lot of thought–to move or not to move.
Actually, my son could use the fresh start–even he says so (and he’d be changing schools next year anyway because this is his last year of elementary school). He has had some issues here, but has learned a lot and had a lot of growth–but you can’t erase the issues that are already there, or the impressions that some people have gotten of you. I think starting over fresh somewhere new would be just the thing that he needs.
And my relationship can’t stay long distance. It won’t work like this for another two years, and we’re both very much talking about “long term” at this point. So it’s kind of a matter of… inconvenience right now in exchange for the chance of a life with the most perfect-for-me guy I’ve ever met… or stay here to finish school at a university I have no particular attachment to and chance eventually losing the man I love and have to start over as a single woman at the age of 34… which since I do still want more kids, and I don’t want to be in my 40s when I have them, isn’t the option I like to think about. Or at best, we put off our life together for another two years, which at my age also sounds like the suck.
(And NO before anyone suggests it, I’m not grabbing the closest guy I can because I feel my biological clock ticking. It’s just that we’re together, we want to be together, and we do both want kids. But I don’t want to do it years and years down the road, because I don’t want to be doing those things at that point in my life. I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that if something happens and we don’t work out, I won’t be having any more kids, because there isn’t enough time to find someone else I truly belong with, establish that level of relationship, get married, have a bit of a life together for a while, and then have kids. It may be biologically possible, but it’s not what I want.)
Well, of course not. If you were, you wouldn’t be pondering moving and where you want to go to school because you wouldn’t be in a long distance relationship, you’d be involved with your neighbor!
Good luck! I hope you like Cleveland. I guess I get a little suspicious when I hear another story of a woman moving away to follow her boyfriend, I did that a couple of years after my divorce and I ended up moving back home next to Mom and Dad nine months later. It was a heartbreaker for both of us. Sometimes there’s good reasons for it, but more often it seems like it’s expected for the woman to make the effort - the man’s job is more important, his house is the better house, and all that jazz. Did you discuss with your boyfriend the idea of him moving to Atlanta? Not that I know anything about your situation, but women need to stand up for their rights more!
I know the fear of getting too old to have kids again - we just threw a baby shower for a woman at the office and she said how her doctor told her “this is a high risk pregancy” just because she’s over 35!!?! :eek: I’ve got a few years to go yet till I get there but it really started me thinking. I’d like my little girl to have a father at home and a baby sister. And she needs to get to know Grandpa and Grandma too! So I’ll think long and hard before I move away again.
Eww! She’s like 70!
He’s from Atlanta. He’s the reason I’m here to begin with, actually. He moved to Cleveland to go to podiatry school to become a doctor. There are only like 6 or 7 podiatry schools in the US, and none are close to here, so he had to move away for school. He has 2 1/2 more years there, then a 3 year residency, then he wants to return to Georgia (Atlanta or Athens).
The thing is, I have NO reason to stay in Atlanta. I am not from here, I don’t have family or other ties here, etc. I’m from Arizona originally, lived most recently in the DC suburbs… and this guy is well worth moving for. Plus, he would make an excellent step-dad–he’s a great role model. We also share a ton of hobbies, including the weird ones (we met at a juggling convention!). This isn’t a guy I could replace, and I doubt strongly that I’ll ever meet someone even comparible again.
Anyway, thanks again to everyone for throwing their school ideas at me. I didn’t really know of anything in that area except for Case (no art program) and of course Dan’s podiatry school (really no art program! haha) and now I know of several and think that CSU looks like a serious possibility.
Has he looked into if it would be possible to transfer to the podiatry school in Florida? (this one: School of Podiatric Medicine - Barry University, Miami, FL ) It can be hard to get approved for a transfer for professional schools, but it might be worth looking into.
I’ve heard of people being allowed to transfer for the sake of being closer to a spouse or a sick relative.
Oops, now that I look at the school’s page more closely I realize that it’s down in south FL so not really much closer than Cleveland is. Sorry about that. But I hope you can find a solution that works for all three of you.
He interviewed at the Miami school, and at the New York and Philadelphia schools, but the one in Cleveland seems like the best, and it offered him a lot more scholarship money. And yeah, it’s still hella far away.
(plus, which matters more? A doctor getting the best, solid education they can, or an art major? Not to disparage my own major or anything, but he’s at an excellent school in a very rigid program, and his medical degree is a lot more important than my state-college bachelor’s degree which is already a patchwork of classes from 4 different colleges over a 16 year period. Him switching schools just wouldn’t make sense in our situation, especially since he made his decision to go away to school knowing what was going on. I mean, it’s not like we met after he started school. We were together here, and he moved away.)
I’m already starting to stock up on beer for the 2007 Burning River Dopefest. The remodeling is coming along slowly, so next year hopefully you’ll all see what will appear to be an entirely different house.
Anyhow, geographically speaking, CSU is probably your best bet. Cleveland has a very strong East Side/West Side divide. Most of the colleges and cultural institutions are east of the Cuyahoga, with the old money crowd; young professionals increasingly live west of the river.
Sorry again to stick my nose in your business. I’m happy to hear that you’ve met the right man for you and the love of your life - there’s no better feeling thatn that! but I’ve seen and been in similar situations in the past, so I’ll just share what I’ve seen happen in the past:
Don’t belittle yourself and start thinking that his job, career, needs and wants are more important than yours! You shouldn’t have to move your house, and your son, every time he decides that what HE wants is what counts. It sounds like you moved to Atlanta to be with him, and then he took off for another city, and then you’re moving there for two years, and then when he’s done with school you’ll have to move again? A long-distance relationship for two years is possible, my girlfriend did it with her hubby when he was in the service and they got married only after he came back to the US, which she told me was the smartest decision she ever made because she got to finish her degree (something I didn’t do and I regret it now.)
Especially since you have a teenage son, that’s a sensitive age, moving all over the place to follow your man might not be the best thing for him. He could always get a fresh start enrolling in a new school, but keeping the friends he has in your neighborhood.
One last thing - meeting the man of your dreams is wonderful, but then again I thought I had met the man of my dreams too and I would never find anybody as good, and the man of my dreams turned out not to be the man of my dreams after all. I have probably 5 or 6 girlfriends who married someone and told me “this is it, this is for the rest of my life” and are now divorced.
I’m sure you know what’s best for you, and I wish you good luck and hope that God will help you make the right choice. But think carefully is all I’m saying.
I’ll butt out now.
You don’t know the whole situation, and you are making a whole lot of (incorrect) assumptions. I appreciate your concern but this really is the kind of thing where a stranger’s advice isn’t really applicable because there is no way I could bring you up to speed on all the factors thoroughly enough for you to give informed advice. And I’m rather offended that you assume that I’m “belittling myself” etc., based on the little info you have. That’s far from true; I’m just realistic: there are only 7 podiatry schools in this country. There are a bazillion state colleges with art departments, and there is nothing special about the one I’m currently going to–in fact, it’s the fourth college I’ve been to. It is a trivial matter for me to finish my degree at another school, except for the minor hassle of applying and doing paperwork. On the other hand, it is totally not possible for him to move here to finish his.
And we’ve already BEEN doing the long distance relationship thing for over two years. Making that into four or five (and then it would still mean moving to where he does his residency, because that’s another 3 years) is not something we want. We either want to start our life together or not. Not put off starting our life for years and years. That might be an option if we were in our mid-twenties, but we’re not. For one thing, I want more kids. I also don’t want to get married and then get pregnant right away–I’d like to have fun as a married couple without being tied to a baby for a couple of years first. So that would put me at minimum 39 or 40 having our first, and that is NOT what I want. That is not where I want to be or what I want to be doing at that stage of my life. And it’s certainly not a “compromise” that’s worth it. Weighing that against moving? No contest. And I don’t have a teenage son, I have an 11 year old who will be changing schools next year anyway, and who could use a fresh start regardless.
And I was in a 15 year marriage (though the last two years we were separated), it’s not like I’m some fresh young thing with no relationship experience.
Anyway, can people please stop with the “life advice” because really, no offense, but none of you–not even the ones I know well in real life–knows all of the factors involved and it’s tedious having to come in and explain it all piece by piece. I wanted help finding out which Cleveland schools had art departments, and out of those, which was better. That’s all. I didn’t ask for anyone to judge my life or my decisions.