Grad School

Sorry for the lack in posts. We really aren’t very exciting people to begin with and we don’t have any kids yet, so our posts are few and far between :)

As most of you know, Danny has decided to pursue his Master’s Degree in Food Science here at Utah State University. This decision came after hours of discussion, prayer, fasting and weighing out the options. Danny applied to the graduate programs at Utah State University, Cal Poly, South Dakota State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These schools all have a Dairy Science program, which is what Danny is most interested in. You can find more about what Dairy Science is here. We had always kind of planned to stay here at USU, but he applied to these different schools to see what the other schools would offer for Danny to go there. We first heard from Utah State, who offered a very good scholarship. Danny had only a couple of weeks to either accept/decline the scholarship so we e-mailed the other schools to see if they could give us an offer to compete with Utah State’s. We heard back from South Dakota State, who gave us a pretty good offer and we also heard back from Wisconsin, who offered a really great assistantship. These offers then tempted us to consider going elsewhere for his master’s degree.

We got these offers while we were on Spring Break so we had a lot of time to think about everything. We weighed out every possible pro and con and it came to a tie between Wisconsin and Utah State. Once we got to this point, it took us another 2-3 days to decide to stay here. It was a very difficult decision and we appreciate everyone’s support and help as we made the decision!

As a fun side note, I compared all of the mascots of the different schools. Would you believe me if I said this was the deal-breaker for us? (I hope you wouldn’t! :P )

Danny will be graduating with his Bachelor’s degree on May 5^th and will start his master’s program the next week. We are really excited for this new chapter in our life and for the possibilities this master’s degree will give our family. Even though it would be a couple of years down the road, Danny is also now considering a doctorate degree, which would require us to attend school out of state, as he can’t get his PhD here at USU. Nothing’s definite with this, but just a possibility. :) If he does, Wisconsin would probably be the front-runner.

            As for me, I still have about a year left. I’ll be graduating in the spring of 2013 with my Bachelor’s of Family Life Studies. I currently only take 9 credits at a time so it’s a slow and steady process but I feel like I can feel the end in sight! I’ll be taking 12 credits this summer so hopefully it won’t be too difficult with working, too. After I’m done with my degree, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself after work…maybe work on some sewing projects! :)