Originally Published on CBS Affiliate WCAX, June 22, 2010, by Alexei Rubenstein

Northfield, Vermont - June 22, 2010

From the virtual classroom to the real-world campus; after working exclusively online for a year and a half, the 25 graduate students in the Norwich nursing program are getting to know each other in person.

"It was really exciting," said Nida Mouser of Washington. "It's almost like having a friendship and you haven't seen them for a long time."

"It was like we were two peas in a pod. We just got along so well," said Kathy Truay of Michigan. "It was like her personality was just like it was online and that's pretty much what we've found with everybody in the class. You can pick out who was who just from what they were talking about."

The Norwich Graduate program started back in 1997 as a combination of online and traditional classes. But in 2000 the school embraced a different model, finding the flexibility of graduate online courses lent itself to today's busy lifestyles.

The hub of the virtual campus is here. Workers help students around the clock with everything from admissions questions to course advising and technical support. Forget class times and lectures, the classes take place in 11-week blocks through an online portal that students enter on their own schedule.

"So it's about very regular communication and in a lot of different formats whether that be discussions, emails, phone calls -- any number of ways," said Bill Clements, the dean of graduate studies at Norwich.

Nineteen-hundred students are enrolled in the graduate school from across the country and overseas. Their professors are also scattered far and wide. And for one week they come to live in the dorms, eat together and present their work.

"The advantage of coming onto campus is that you get to meet your classmates who you've struggled with and really bonded with over the last year and a half to two years in an electronic classroom," Clements said. "And in my own experience I've seen friendships develop that I know would have never developed in a classroom, simply because the people were so different-- not the type that would have sat next to each other in a classroom or even talked in a classroom."

Students and staff say the courses tend to be more difficult than a real classroom, because writing, discussion posts and other course work are so closely monitored.

"So you really do isolate a little bit and it really is difficult to get that support that you need sometimes so doing an online class is much more difficult to me than doing a traditional classroom," Truay said.

Students wrap up their week with a graduation ceremony and a good-bye to new found friends.

The school offers nine graduate programs. And as of this month it has a new title; the Norwich University School of Graduate and Continuing Education Studies to reflect an expanded offering of courses.

Alexei Rubenstein - WCAX News