Life Experience Credits

Life Experience Credits Made My Degree Possible

Most of us learn early on that you can’t plan life. But whether or not it’s planned, you definitely learn from it.

I got my Associate’s, but life intervened with studying, and I had to bite the bullet and start working. A couple years later I was on my feet and thinking about getting my Bachelor’s degree. I didn’t want to put my career on hold to do it yet. I’m a grown woman, and it’s not like I could just stop paying rent and car payments, you know? The more I researched the more discouraged I got. Sure, I was willing to take some classes, but it was going to take me four to six years to do what should have taken two. Or so I thought. That’s when I found about earning life experience credits.

What are Life Experience Credits?

As more and more adults go back to school, and more and more so-called “traditional students” head straight into the workforce because of the economy, colleges and universities have begun to see that they need to get with the times. You know and I know that real world experience can be as good as–if not better than–what you learn in the classroom. Life experience credits recognize that. Life experience credits are a way for your college or university to award you real college credit based on the learning you’ve done in real life.

How do you get them?

Contact your academic adviser. If you don’t have one yet, get in touch with local colleges and universities and request a consultation with one. Usually, earning credits based on your life experience requires plenty of thorough documentation. Put together a “learning portfolio”–letters from your boss, for example, training certifications you’ve earned, and so forth. These things will be reviewed by a professor to see if your learning meets the requirements for earning credits.