I'm a current student at TCMC. The Office is a good television show, but not too representative of Scranton (it wasn't even actually filmed in Scranton.) But now actually thinking about it kind of is like the office...I digress. The region is a coal town that is economically depressed since the coal and steel industries left. A very typical northeast rust belt city. I'm sure some website could give you the breakdown of race better than this, but from my experience it is more white than anything, with some African Americans and a quickly growing Hispanic population. There is also a growing population of Asian residents. There is also a pretty large Orthodox Jewish population. There are also some Amish communities in the more rural areas of the like 16 counties TCMC covers. It has a lot of surprising diversity compared to many surrounding areas, which I chalk up to the fact that it is so close to both NYC and Philly (2 hrs approximately to each.) Concerns that the community have are definitely economically based, because it is in a depressed area. However, it also has an aging population with higher rates of smoking than the national average so you have those healthcare concerns that go along with an aging and smoking population as well. It's an "urban" area in a very small concentrated section of the city (like maybe a 10-15 block radius) and the rest is mostly suburban. It's a small city/large town. The cost of living is SO LOW, especially if you're used to rent prices in large cities (I paid $800 for a very nice and large 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment with everything included except internet and cable, and many of my classmates paid much less for 1 bedroom apartments - like under $500.) I no longer live in Scranton because I moved to a different campus for my clinical rotations, so you also have to taken into consideration the fact that there could be other cities that you'd be living in during medical school (if where you live is that big of a concern for you, you could also possibly be in a different place for your 3rd year, like the Pocono's, Wilkes-Barre, Sayre, Williamsport, and potentially Danville if that is added as a campus with the new Geisinger integration). All of those places have their own concerns and types of areas, but educationally speaking they're equivalent. Scranton also has a pretty decent food scene (keep in mind it's not NYC) but for a city of like 20,000 people it has some pretty cool places like an awesome Indian place, a few Thai places, a Lebanese restaurant, a FANTASTIC Brazilian Barbecue, a ton of good Deli's and Pizza/Italian places, and some pretty cool food trucks. (And that's all from a year or so ago when I lived there last, so there could very well be new even better places). There are a lot of bars and a lot of churches - very Catholic area with the University of Scranton (a Jesuit university) and the large numbers of people with Irish heritage in the area. It has a lot of historical places, too, like the Steamtown National Historic Site, that can be fun to see when you're in town. There are a ton of outdoors things to do, so if you like to hike, bike, run, Kayak, etc. there is a place for it. It's also pretty safe, especially if you again compare it to an actually large city. The community really rallied around the school when they were planning on it being a thing so there is a lot of community pride in the school and the city as a whole is happy to have the medical school and is really welcoming to medical students. If you have any more questions about the area or the school feel free to message me.
