When Virtual Meets Reality

I had a surreal experience weeks ago. It was graduation day. Under normal circumstances, graduation is a time to celebrate with classmates, family, and friends. This was still the case but definitely not a normal experience at all.

I received my Master’s degree from an online program. There are a number of posts throughout my blog about this experience and the challenges it threw in my way. I also spoke often about the poor timing on my part to begin this program due to other circumstances in my life. There are also many discussions and replies about my classmates. This is a post to bring all of this together.

I have spent countless hours this past year in virtual classrooms with classmates and instructors. We have all signed up for various online communication tools, became friends on social networks, passed around contacts and worked on a number of projects together. We have all shared news of what was going on in our daily lives even though we have lived miles away from each other. Even though we have spent this time together virtually, we all really met for the first time on May 7.

The closest comparison I can come up with is meeting a celebrity. We watch our favorites on TV or on the big screen. We can read stories about them in magazines and even have glimpses of their lives through blogs or other media. We know who they are when we run into them somewhere and talk about it to everyone we know.

I met a group of celebrities at graduation. Instructors came backstage before we processed in to talk to us and make plans for lunch. We all introduced ourselves to each other even though we knew each other. A lot of hugs and celebrations. We seemed to pick up conversations naturally and made plans to spend as much face to face time as possible through the weekend.

It was fun catching up with friends and just celebrating together. We all worked hard to reach a goal and sharing this step of this particular journey was a lot of fun. We ended as we began, creating new bonds and continuing friendships while sharing ideas and future dreams.

I waited a few weeks to write about this as it really needed to settle for me. I didn’t believe I actually earned my Master’s degree. It took walking across the stage with a piece of paper and shaking the hands of my instructors to make it real. I also wanted to settle into life without the large projects due each week to put myself into a new routine. Through these weeks I have had many conversations with my classmates as we have been sharing with each other what we would like to do next. (as well as sharing job openings) It was also great to meet some of our support network. The people behind the scenes supporting us. The classmates that could not make it were with us the entire weekend and connections and plans are still being made to get together and keep in touch as a group. In this case, a combining of the virtual and real worlds is a good thing.

Pictures from: http://www.hellasmultimedia.com/webimages/graduation