I live downtown in Vancouver, which is notorious for high prices (to own). Rent seems comparable to other major cities. No car. Decent transit system ($1200 / year for me, if work was a few blocks closer it would be $600, stupid 2 zone).

I figure the money I save by not having a car more than makes up for the amount I pay for increased rent (living downtown close to work) with the added benefit of living downtown in a major city. It's not a setup for life, but isn't a bad place to be in your twenties. Walking distance to great shops, restaurants, beach. Transit to local mountains / whistler is pretty cheap (easy to hitch a ride off of someone you know going as well).

It's actually cheaper for me to live in Vancouver, than to live in some other major cities in Canada due to placement of offices for my line work --I would need to own a car and the amount of money I save in rent is nothing compared to the price of a car + insurance + gas.

It all depends where you live though.

I wasn't coding, mostly doing inspections and updating the support design using this horrible buggy CAD software on toughbooks.

Except I'm in the (mostly) dark, breathing through an airstream helmet (with lovely huge battery to tote around all day), usually in a pool of water (underground is wet), above 500 m down. Toss in the fact that it's a uranium deposit (therefor a higher geothermal gradient) + any air that was getting pipped in was surface temperature (40C+), it got really nasty fast.

Still not as bad as the day they pumped the septic tanks in the underground mechanic bay. God, it stank for weeks underground if you got in any tunnels even remotely close to that place.

Go for the geology degree!

When I did my undergrad (in geological engineering which shared a lot of classes with the geologists) there was an older gentleman who really had his stuff together. He was an incredible lab partner, as well as the one who asked the most interesting questions during lecture.

I'm not sure what happened to him --but I'm sure he's successful somewhere.

The tough part with geology is the field work --which gets harder the older you are. Not because you're old, just that you have more responsibilities. It's easy for me to disappear 3-4 weeks to a site for some field work but it's more difficult when you have stuff tying you down in the city. Then again, that can be the appeal!

Best of luck with the geology degree --some of the geology classes were my favorite things in school. I really enjoyed geomorphology (taught by a 93 year old prof who still played on the departments hockey team) and a class on extreme value statistics (natural hazard risk assessment). 3D visualization / GIS out of the geography department was also really interesting --not for the technical knowledge but exposure to really neat urban planning / pysch / early CS papers from the late sixties.

I work in the mining industry as an engineer. On paper, I travel to exotic places --south america, australia, mongolia. Hell, even Northern Canada sounds exotic and certain times of the year (it can be quite gorgeous).

The sad reality? I pass through all those places, it's often lonely (if I'm the only english speaker on site) and stressful work. Days are 12-14 hours and field tours last 25-35 days straight. Catch a cold? Suck it up. Don't like the food? Suck it up. Only cold water in shower stalls that are growing mushrooms? Suck it up. I certainly don't see the tourist parts or laze up on a beach someplace drinking and eating good food.

That being said, some places have been neat. But they have been neat for the adventure or the thrill of seeing places that most people never get to see --off the beaten path helicopter access only type places. The weather and the other people you are stuck with can make or break the place. Northern alaska on clear nights (nightshift is a reality)? Gorgeous. Northern Alaska in -10 to 0 C rain/snow mixtures while rocking trench foot in both your feet for the past two weeks? Garbage.

I like the field/travel aspect sometimes, but lots can be said for having standard hours and a set work week. It's not like they pay you out the nose to tough it out in the field and muck up your life because you are out of town for 1/3-1/2 the year.

A necessary evil of my job. Occasionally fun, occasionally a toil.

One of my favorite things to do is still to pound the pavement at a local used bookstore. I dislike buying books online as some of the best finds I've had were just from browsing and stacks and looking what catches my eye. You can't do that with a giant internet store --it's only good if you know what you are looking for.

There are several in my area, with the main one being Pulp Fiction books. They have a "incoming" section that rotates all the new stock through and I pop my head in at least once a week. Loads of stuff I would have never read if I was buying online. Add in a helpful staff, all with various likes and dislikes and expertise, and I've gotten to have a good rapport with them. They point me to interesting stuff I may like based off my previous purchases --except the stuff they recommend is far better than the stuff that comes out of amazon's automated system. We trade books, interesting links, jokes, movie thoughts, etc.

I wouldn't trade it for the world. I happily buy 10-15 books a month from these guys. They've started up really trading a lot of used graphic novels and the collection is looking promising.

Brick and mortar shops are NOT dead and I hope mine stays around for a long time to come. I once saw William Gibson perusing the stacks in it --try that at an online store.