Thanks to Heather Andring for this submission!
With The Social Network nominated for an Oscar in 2011
and Mark Zuckerberg named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in
2010, it has never been cooler to be a nerd than it is right now. In this day
and age of all things high-tech, we couldn’t think of a better time than now to
celebrate the self-proclaimed nerds of Match.com. We researched our top 10
cities with the highest educated Match.com members (either in technical or
educational occupations), and eureka! Sunnyvale, CA (in the heart of Silicon
Valley) is THE number-one place to find yourself your very own nerd.
The
nerd-factors of some cities might seem obvious because of the brainy companies
and schools that are stationed there. For instance, Sunnyvale is home to many
online businesses, Cambridge is home to Harvard University, and Somerville is
home to another prestigious university, Tufts. In each one of our geek-hubs you
can find a technologically advanced company or a scholarly university. So it
seems that if you have a heart for the smart, search for a smarty-pants of your
own in one of our top 10 cities.
most to least nerdy for singles: 1. Sunnyvale, CA — In the hub of the intellectually stimulating Silicon Valley,
Sunnyvale is home to some of the brainiest companies, including Yahoo!, Palm,
Inc., and several aerospace/defense companies. Sunnyvale is one of the few U.S.
cities to have a single unified Department of Public Safety (where all personnel
are trained as firefighters, police officers and EMTs), so they can respond to
any of these types of emergencies from a single department. Now that’s smart!
2. Cambridge, MA — Cambridge is home to two highly esteemed and
prominent schools, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (M.I.T.). The city is also noted in history as the birthplace of the
U.S. Army by the scholarly George Washington.
3. Somerville, MA —
Cambridge’s nerdy neighbor, Somerville, is home to the private research
university, Tufts. As one of the most densely populated municipalities near
Boston, there are many clever minds to be found within a compact area.
4. Berkeley, CA — This San Francisco treat is the site of the University
of California at Berkeley, the oldest institute of higher learning within the
revered University of California systems. The state-of-the-art Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory also calls this city home.
5. Santa Clara, CA —
Resting in the center of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara hosts the headquarters for
Intel, Sun Microsystems and many other high-tech companies. It’s also the home
of Santa Clara University (the oldest institution of higher learning in the
state of California) and Mission College.
6. Ann Arbor, MI — In Ann
Arbor, the University of Michigan employs about 30,000 people — which equals
roughly 26% of the city’s population. The city’s economy mostly depends on
developments in high technology, as many companies are drawn to the area due to
the educated alumnae that have matriculated there.
7. Boulder, CO — Not
only serving as the home base for the University of Colorado, Boulder is also a
burgeoning hub for high-technology, electronics and aerospace companies. Five of
every six adults in the Boulder area (82.5%) have attended college.
8.
Columbia, MD — The nearby National Security Agency and Fort Meade Army base
account for more than 8,000 highly educated jobs that can be found in Columbia.
On another nerdy note, the city takes its street names from famous works of art
and literature. In 2010, Columbia was ranked #2 on Money Magazine’s list of the
top 100 “Best Places to Live” in the United States.
9. Fairfax, VA — In
May of 2008, Forbes commended Fairfax for its strong public school system, high
median salary, and financially fit employers in the city, which include SunTrust
and Federal Technology Services.
10. Rockville, MD — Situated at the
core of the Interstate 270 Technology Corridor, Rockville is home to numerous
software and biotechnology companies as well as several federal government
institutions. Its per-capita venture capital investment is the highest of any
town outside of California.