The W&M Journal — Week 1: The Starting Line

Today is the beginning of my Master of Legal Studies program at William & Mary, and I want to maintain the weekly posting rhythm I have established on this website. I thought one way to do that would be to write a weekly progress report about how things are going in my classes.

The school year officially starts today, Monday, August 24. But William & Mary opened the classes for the semester last Monday.

And thank goodness they did.

That extra week gave me a chance to look over each of my two courses and begin organizing a study plan. Even though there was no pressure and nothing had a due date yet, the week was still a little chaotic.

Part of that was simply learning how William & Mary organizes its online classes. At times, figuring everything out was very easy; at other times, it was a little frustrating. But compared with some of the other universities where I have taken online classes, the experience has been unbelievably smooth. William & Mary is very organized, and navigating the various screens is surprisingly easy. So far, I am very impressed.

To recap the week, I spent most of my time reading orientation material, setting up notebooks—both physical and digital—and trying to understand what will be expected of me.

Now the warmup is over.

In these weekly reports, I intend to be candid. I will share what is going well and what is not. I will write about the classes themselves, but perhaps more importantly, I will write about how I am reacting to the experience emotionally. And I will take the liberty of sharing some of what I am doing away from class—the things that keep me balanced while all of this is going on.

I don’t know exactly what these weekly reports will look like yet. That’s part of the fun. This morning, I’m simply standing at the starting line.

The courses are open. The clock is running. The starter has fired the pistol.

And we’re off.

I look forward to sharing this adventure with you. I assure you, it will help keep me sane—and maybe it will help you a little too.

So, here we go. 🛫