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<p>This happened to a friend of mine when I was working on my English degree. We had exactly one medievalist, and she was pretty well known. (She had assisted a mega-star on what was THE standard translation of Beowulf for decades.) Two years into my friend’s program, this scholar up and left for a job she wanted more. The department did not replace her. My friend had the choice of changing her specialization or starting over at a new school. In hindsight, she realized she probably should have gone to a school with more than one scholar in her area.</p>