You can live basically anywhere you want on $150k a year as a single person, anything that isn't a brand new building will have rent at $2.5-2.6k a month for a 1 bed. Maybe that rules out the Seaport, but there are places a block from Copley on that budget.

edit: to be constructive, grad students/young single yuppies without kids are all over Cambridge and Somerville (Davis, Inman, Union), if they want to be spendy and trendy they're downtown in the South End, Beacon Hill or Back Bay (in small apartments that are quite expensive but hey its nice), or coming in from your direction via Jamaica Plain.