At 8:02 on Monday morning, I opened my laptop, found the course site, and realized that summer had officially begun, not with a packed suitcase or a beach chair, but with a welcome message from my professor and a syllabus full of possibilities. May 11 marked the opening of Catholic University’s first online seven-week session and the fourteen-week summer session. For me, it also marked the beginning of a plan I had been considering all spring: use one focused summer course to make the coming academic year more manageable.
I am working on campus part time this summer, so an online course gives me the flexibility to build school around a real schedule. The first week moved quickly. We introduced ourselves, learned the rhythm of assignments, and began the first unit almost immediately. Summer classes reward organization, but they also create a kind of academic clarity. Instead of dividing my attention among five courses, meetings, and activities, I can give sustained attention to one subject and see the connections more clearly.
The course may be online, but the University does not disappear when the residence halls become quieter. I stopped by Mullen Library to organize my reading list, checked the summer hours for the DuFour Center, and discovered that Garvey Hall still gives students a convenient place to eat or meet. Knowing that library, technology, dining, health, disability support, and other services remain available makes summer study feel like a real University term rather than an academic side project.
By Saturday, I needed a few hours away from the screen. Washington supplied the answer. Rock Creek Park hosted a Historic Trades Festival at Peirce Mill, with demonstrations of blacksmithing, rope making, weaving, and pottery. Watching people practice the crafts that once kept a nineteenth-century mill running was unexpectedly connected to my week. Good work, whether it is a forged tool, a woven textile, or a carefully argued paper, requires patience, technique, and attention.
That may be my first lesson of Summer Session: progress does not always have to be dramatic. Sometimes it begins with a login, a calendar, and the decision to use the next several weeks well. By the end of this course, I will have completed credits toward my degree. Just as important, I am learning how much can happen when I give one academic goal the space it deserves.