To School and Back Again

Last week I did something I hadn't done in the entire time I've been working on my degree. I went to school. "But Miss Berrie!" you may be saying. "Surely you have been to school many times in the last two semesters! You spoke often of your classes!" Well, don't worry, little one. We are both correct. I'm not sure I've ever explained my program here, so let me take a minute to do just that.

For the past two semesters, once a week, I went to my appointed classroom on a nearby campus. I walked in, greeted my four other classmates, and took a seat. Shortly thereafter, our teacher appeared on the screen and began class. We could see her, and she could see not only us, but all the other students in their classrooms across the state. If any student wanted to make a comment or ask a question, that student pushed a button on their microphone and said, "This is *name of student* in *location of student*." Any time someone spoke into their microphone, the camera jumped to them so everyone could see them. This was especially funny when someone unknowingly left their microphone on.

Anyway, because of the distance education set-up for our program, I had never met any of my teachers and only the four other students who also attended from my site. But last week, we had a cohort meeting on our originating campus, so we all drove up for the weekend from our different locations. This was a very unusual experience. You'd be surprised at how tightly knit our cohort has become, despite our being so spread out. It's very strange to feel so close to people I've never met. So it was definitely strange to walk into a room and see all of these people in the flesh. It was like walking into a table read with a bunch of TV stars. But once we got over the initial inner conflict of "I've never met these people, but I know them so well!" we settled in and talked and joked like we were old friends. Our poor professors could hardly keep up.

It was surprisingly sad to leave, because we won't see each other again for over a year, except for on the screen. I have a feeling, though, that while our teachers had a hard time keeping up with our camaraderie last weekend, now that we students have met in real life, our teachers won't stand a chance.