The Online Experience for W&M Counseling Students
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Video Companion
The Online Experience for W&M Counseling Students
Transcript
The program has allowed me the flexibility to integrate all of who I am into being a student as well.
The most challenging part has been time management and figuring out how to balance my roles as a mom, as a wife, as a student, and just as a woman who has interests and motivations and my own personal goals.
I really trusted that institution to provide me with experts in the field who would be my mentors and who I could learn from, and that was critical to me. I don’t think that I would have taken the job to enroll in an online program if I hadn’t felt like I could really trust William & Mary with my time. It’s a really big deal to give over a few years of your life to work toward something, and William & Mary was, you know, what they have to offer is not just a degree that would help me achieve my career goals. It was an experience, and it was the opportunity to cultivate relationships with mentors and people who I have immense respect for.
I came into the experience really not knowing what to expect as an online student. I expected to engage with coursework on a computer. I expected to be in discussions where I typed back and forth with classmates. I’m not sure I expected to learn as much from my classmates as I have on the discussion boards. So many of us have said it’s a way that we get to know one another, and that’s really cool. It’s nice to build relationships through those.
Also, I can’t imagine, even in an in-person program, that we would achieve the depth of discussion on intellectual issues that we are in those written discussion boards. That’s been one of the more surprising factors about what this online program would provide: just how enriching the discussions are and how deep they can go. That has exceeded my expectations about this program in terms of how deep we could go with the material, as well as how much I would learn from my classmates.
I also really appreciate that this program is preparing us with the coursework to be able to move on and pursue my LPC as well, because I also see integrating that into my professional goals as being something that’s really valuable about this program. So I do intend to become a school counselor, as well as begin pursuing my LPC, and, you know, who knows what the future holds.
The most challenging part has been time management and figuring out how to balance my roles as a mom, as a wife, as a student, and just as a woman who has interests and motivations and my own personal goals.
I really trusted that institution to provide me with experts in the field who would be my mentors and who I could learn from, and that was critical to me. I don’t think that I would have taken the job to enroll in an online program if I hadn’t felt like I could really trust William & Mary with my time. It’s a really big deal to give over a few years of your life to work toward something, and William & Mary was, you know, what they have to offer is not just a degree that would help me achieve my career goals. It was an experience, and it was the opportunity to cultivate relationships with mentors and people who I have immense respect for.
I came into the experience really not knowing what to expect as an online student. I expected to engage with coursework on a computer. I expected to be in discussions where I typed back and forth with classmates. I’m not sure I expected to learn as much from my classmates as I have on the discussion boards. So many of us have said it’s a way that we get to know one another, and that’s really cool. It’s nice to build relationships through those.
Also, I can’t imagine, even in an in-person program, that we would achieve the depth of discussion on intellectual issues that we are in those written discussion boards. That’s been one of the more surprising factors about what this online program would provide: just how enriching the discussions are and how deep they can go. That has exceeded my expectations about this program in terms of how deep we could go with the material, as well as how much I would learn from my classmates.
I also really appreciate that this program is preparing us with the coursework to be able to move on and pursue my LPC as well, because I also see integrating that into my professional goals as being something that’s really valuable about this program. So I do intend to become a school counselor, as well as begin pursuing my LPC, and, you know, who knows what the future holds.