The MA in Applied Linguistics prepares students for careers in a variety of professions where an understanding of language is essential. Students may choose to concentrate their studies in one of several areas. Among these areas are second language learning and teaching, TESL, discourse analysis, computational linguistics, language policy and language planning. As an example, students who are interested in the interaction between language and society might choose to take APLN 530 Language Policy and Language Planning, APLN 532 Language and Culture, and APLN 534 Languages in Contact as three of their electives. Students in other programs may elect Linguistics courses with their Graduate Program Coordinator’s prior approval.