What You Need To Know About Working In NYC — According To Transplants

Each year, millions of young professionals from all over the country and world move here in search of their dream career. For many, New York signifies opportunity and is a manifestation of the American dream, but is living and working in NYC all that it's cracked up to be?

New York City isn't always an easy place to live. With a high (and ever-increasing) cost of living, a fickle housing market, competitive culture, and less-than-efficient public transportation, the city is filled with obstacles that can sometimes make thriving here a challenge. And, when it comes to navigating work culture, things aren't always much easier. After all, this is a land of pros and cons: For instance, the average New Yorker works 49 hours a week (thanks to an average weekly commute of nearly six and a half hours) but also makes higher-than-average wages.

In order to paint a better picture of what it's like to live and work in New York City — especially given the city's polarity — Refinery29 chatted with six transplants from different cities about what they wish they had known before moving to the city.

Opening up about finances, office culture, the wage gap, and side hustle culture, these professionals shed some much-needed light on the realities of being a young professional in the city that never sleeps.