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Okay, here's what my mind is currently pondering at the moment. A little over a week ago, I was accepted to graduate school at the University of North Dakota in its linguistics program. Needless to say, I'm happy about it, but there are a few things that are concerning me about this.

My areas of interest in linguistics lies in the area of historical linguistics or sociolinguistics. The problem is that North Dakota's linguistics program focuses in applied linguistics. Now, I've already made up my mind to go to NoDak for this semester. Quite possibly, I might transfer the credit to another university and finish up my degree there, but I'm wondering if that would be such a great idea.

Even if I did go to UND for the full master's program, I doubt that it would really be that bad. UND still offers an M. A. in linguistics, and that's what I'm essentially hoping to get. UND does offer courses in sociolinguistics and historical linguistics even if their focus isn't on those topics, and I can tailor my coursework around that. To add to that, I can focus my research in my thesis toward my interests. In addition, if I want to study this field further, I can still then direct my Ph. D. study toward my interests as well.

Despite this, I've still been considering other universities: Chicago, CU-Boulder, McGill… just to name a few. If the issue of what to focus in were my primary concern, I would have picked one of the other universities, but UND has one big advantage: it's cheap. Since paying off loans until I'm thirty doesn't seem to be a big priority, UND is starting to look really good.