Moving to Hershey for a Job at the Medical Center

Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center runs about 631 licensed beds and, counting the College of Medicine, employs more than eleven thousand people. A good share of them arrive from somewhere else. They sign a lease from four states away, and then spend the first year figuring out where they should have looked.

Here is what is worth knowing before that.

The commute is short, so spend the savings elsewhere

Almost nowhere in Derry Township is more than fifteen minutes from the medical center. Hummelstown is ten. Palmyra is fifteen. Even the eastern edge of Harrisburg is under half an hour outside of rush hour.

That matters because it frees you up. In most cities you pick the neighborhood that makes the drive survivable. Here the drive is short from nearly everywhere, so you can choose on the things that actually wear on you: the size of the yard, whether the street has sidewalks, how much house you want to heat in January.

If you are on call, drive the route once at the hour you would really be driving it. Summer traffic around the park adds time on some routes, and it is better to find that out before you choose a house.

Rent for a year if the job allows it

Central Pennsylvania is not one place. Hershey, Hummelstown, Palmyra, and Middletown are within a few miles of each other and feel nothing alike. A year of living here tells you which one you are, and it costs less than buying the wrong house and selling it in eighteen months.

If you already know, or the numbers make renting wasteful, that is fine too. Just go into it having seen more than one town.

What the seasons do to inventory

New listings thin out from December through February. They pick up in March, and the most new listings come April through June, which is also when residencies and fellowships starting July 1 push the most people into the market at once.

If your start date is July, you are competing with everyone else whose start date is July. Beginning the search in February instead of May is the single easiest advantage available to you.

Start with the town

A morning spent driving around Derry Township and Hummelstown will change what you think you want, and it is easier to do before you have fallen for a kitchen.

I do this with anyone moving in from out of the area.