Tufts vs. Northwestern pre-med?

Mastadon
Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:11:25 +0000

@ Daphne

In west coast terms, Boston feels a lot like San Francisco (only a little smaller) and Chicago feels a lot like LA (only a little smaller). As you have probably figured out, this makes Chicago significantly larger than Boston.

The primary hangout for socially active Jumbos is the “Tufts-Harvard-MIT corridor”. This corridor consists of Davis Square, Porter Square, Harvard Square, Central Square and Kendal Square. These squares correspond to the subway stops between Tufts and MIT. Davis Square and Harvard Square are the most popular hangouts for Tufts students.

Since it is about two miles from Tufts to Harvard and about another two miles from Harvard to MIT, this corridor is a little bigger than the city of Evanston. Since Downtown Boston is right across the Charles River from MIT and Evanston shares a border with Chicago, technically Northwestern is a little closer to Chicago than Tufts is to Boston.

But it is important to remember that Chicago is about 35 miles long by about nine miles wide. To put this in context, if you were to overlay Evanston and Chicago onto Massachusetts aligning the southernmost parts of the two cities, Evanston would land somewhere near Salem, New Hampshire.

It is also important to recognize that people seeking entertainment in the Chicago area do not go to “Chicago”, they go to “Downtown Chicago”, which starts about 13 miles from
Northwestern and extends about another seven miles. That puts some parts of the downtown about 20 miles from Northwestern.

In contrast, you are in “Downtown Boston” as soon as you cross the river and its furthest point is about three miles. That puts the furthest reaches of “Downtown Boston” about seven miles from Tufts.

So, the most relevant comparisons are Evanston vs. the Tufts-Harvard-MIT corridor, the fact that Northwestern is about 13 miles from downtown vs. Tufts is about four miles from downtown, and that Chicago’s downtown can’t be navigated by foot and Boston’s pretty much can.