Transitioning From an Online Education to an On-Campus MSW Program

by Jessica L. Faulk

     For the final year of my associate’s degree in the arts and the two and a half years of my bachelor’s in psychology, I earned my education online. Students interacted through online forums, and we could communicate with professors by email. Because there were no pictures or profiles provided for students, my classmates were anonymous strangers on the internet. The few times I reached out to other students to find out more about them, I received no reply. I hope my experience is atypical; it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s not. For my part, I could not tell you the name of a single student or professor I encountered during the entirety of my online programs.

     When I stepped onto my college campus in August 2019, I glowed with joy and pride. The campus at Winthrop University is beautiful, with buildings steeped in history and with an architecture no longer seen. Trees that had seen the school’s foundations soared as high as our aspirations. The campus was bursting with a student body that was more excited and alive than any online classroom could stimulate. On the first day of class, as I shyly greeted the seven other women who would be part of my MSW cohort for the next two years, I could have cried with gratitude. As the weeks went by and we began to grow closer, we shared ourselves and our histories with one another.

     The professors move through their classes with their knowledge and humanity. They challenge us to see our future clients in all of their personhood, and they guide us through the concrete obstacles that were so abstract when we were undergrads. It’s easy to invite the client to learn some coping skills. It is another thing when they sit before us frustrated and unable to see where their self-care will come. In the classroom, the imagined client is appealing to us, and our knowledge will only take us so far. We come onto the campus as humans, taught by other humans, wanting to help humans. Along the way, there is an evolution. We must take that courageous step. No matter where we are at this stage of our education, it can be a frightening thing to step over that line of safety and become not so much a human with the client, but a person with another person.

     It is hard for me to imagine that the fullest extent of the helping profession can be taught online, in the blindness of a virtual classroom and the sterility of text and screens. It is a medium most beneficial for some, of that I’m certain. But for myself, there is an element that is missing, and that can only be found in connections that cannot be digitally fabricated. When you acknowledge a professor’s research and they lower their eyes in humility, when a member of your cohort gives you an honest grin, when you give a fellow student directions to another building -- these are all the tiniest and most significant of experiences.

     In an age of connectedness through smartphones and social media, we can still experience a division of being. The desire for belongingness is just as real as it has always been. The digital realm does little to assuage that nearly universal craving for the intimate relationships and communication that can really only be had in physical proximity to another person.

     When I pass through the shadows cast by the historic structures on my campus, I feel confident my education will go farther than it ever has before.

Jessica L. Faulk is an MSW student at Winthrop University with a BA in psychology from Arizona State University. She intends to earn her LCSW and practice psychotherapy.