José Francisco Rivas Valencia owns a land development company in Colima, Mexico. He lives 7,600 miles from Greg King, a GIS consultant based in Brisbane, Australia. Yet Rivas and King meet once a week in an online virtual classroom—sometimes as computer avatars—as they pursue a Master of Professional Studies in Geodesign degree from a school located thousands of miles away from both of them: Penn State World Campus, based in State College, Pennsylvania.