Every year, high school seniors across the country have to make a major decision - go away to college, or stay in their home state.
Josh Christman, a recent graduate of Century High School in Bismarck, ND, is leaving the state to attend Parsons The New School for Design in New York. While that wasn't the only school he applied to, Christman, 18, said he knew he wanted to get out of North Dakota.
"I made a decision before I applied to any schools not to apply to any in North Dakota, because I didn't want to stay here," he said. "I wanted to get out and experience something else."
But for other young people in the state, the decision to stay close to home after graduation is an equally easy one.
Nick Kelly, 19, is a sophomore music education major at the University of North Dakota. He stayed in-state, though during the school year, he's about four hours away from his family's home in Mandan, ND.
Kelly said that while he considered moving away for school, he decided that staying in the state made the most sense for him.
"I love the community," he said. "It's a small community, but yet you still live in kind of a big town. And the people here are so nice, and it just has an all-around great feel to it."
After graduating, Kelly said he hopes to stay in North Dakota to teach and compose music.
"That's the kind of job you really can do anywhere," he said. "I'd love to stay here to teach, and it doesn't matter where I am, I can always compose."
But that isn't true for all professions. For Christman, pursuing a career in the design field meant that he needed to move to a bigger city.
"For what I'm doing, there's a lot more opportunities, and a lot better opportunities," he said. "There's so much going on in New York with design, and in trends, and I'll have a lot more opportunities to experience all that, and be a part of all that as it's happening."
Unlike a lot of states, North Dakota has a low unemployment rate, just under 4-percent. Job Service North Dakota, an agency that promotes job growth in the area, said there are jobs available for all skill levels, if they can just get young people to stay in North Dakota.
"There's a lot more education now in that college level, and we're really working with guidance counselors in the high school level and making sure that they're informing their students what careers are going to be popular," said Lelan Bosch, of job service.
Those careers include jobs in computer engineering and the medical field, two of the fastest-growing jobs in the state. And, according to job service, more young people are staying in North Dakota because of those professional opportunities. In the last four years, the number of workers under-35 has grown more than 2,000 a year. Bosch said that Job Service provides a web site, www.findjobsnd.com, to help young people search for available jobs in the state.
"Students are going to be finding a way to stay here," Bosch said. "Instead of looking outside our boarders, they're going to be able to stay here and raise their families here."
Check out a video about the choices that Josh and Nick have made here: http://think.mtv.com/044FDFFFF0098A10B001700992313/