Residency: Part 1

This week, I'm finally at my residency for my Master's degree. In March of 2008, I started taking the degree through Norwich University's School of Graduate Studies, working towards a degree in Military History. It's an online school, and every day, I worked with fellow classmates, but through Internet discussion boards and through papers that I wrote and submitted online to my instructors. It's certainly a different way of learning, but I've taken to it.

For every degree, we require that students come on campus, and this week's our week. I'm finally able to meet my fellow classmates, whom I've worked with for 18 months now. Beyond that, I'm finally meeting students whom I've worked with when I first started the program. I've talked with them since day 1 of the degree, and come Friday, I'll be walking with them across the stage. I still have some work to do after this residency (I'm an accelerated student) but the bulk of the program is over. I don't have classwork, just research, which is exciting.

Residency is proving to be a highly productive and entertaining week here. While in years past, we've required students to present their capstone, we've moved away from that this year, in favor of faculty presentations which seems to be pretty popular with the students. Overall, students are enjoying the time, and meeting up with my fellow classmates has been extremely fun.

The first two days have been made up of presentations - I've sat in on ones about military doctrine, the Battle of Kursk, the IRA and the Easter Rising, Roger's Rangers and Historiography and one on how to write and eventually publish a capstone paper. The rest of the week will be some rehersals for Graduation and our Academic Hooding Ceremony, then Graduation on Friday morning. I'm quite looking forward to that.