5 Things to Consider When Submitting Life Experience for College Credit

Going back to school as an adult has its advantages. At Colorado Christian University, the experience you obtained while you’ve been out of school could count as school credit - helping you save money and accelerate your degree program. With CCU’s Prior Learning Credit options, you can earn up to 75 credits toward your undergraduate degree. You can earn up to 30 of those credits by submitting a portfolio that reviews all your experience and how it relates to the degree you’d like to earn.

Here are 5 things to consider when submitting your life experience for college credit

Post-High School Education

Some of your previous education may support the experience you obtained as a result of what you learned. So, be sure to include all of your post-high school education. As you develop a portfolio, you will need to give basic information about yourself as an adult student and specify how many credits you are requesting to apply to your prior learning portfolio. All CCU Online bachelor’s degrees require a total of 120 credits. You can complete up to 76 credit hours of the 120 required using your life experience. That is up to 63% of your degree! Your student success advisor is there to help guide you through the process of official transcripts and/or documentation from each post-high school institution to verify this information. These can be mailed to you or sent electronically depending on the options available from the institution.

Work Experience

Describe and document 3+ years of post-high school learning through work experience in the areas you are petitioning for credit. The more detail you include, the better. You will be asked to write 300 words to describe your work responsibilities and self-assessment on each example of work experience that you are applying for college credit. Here are a few questions to help you get started:

• What work experience do I have as it relates to the degree I want to earn?
• Have I been in any management positions that required skills that related to the degree I want to earn?
• What have I learned from the different levels of employment I’ve experienced?

Certificates, Seminars, Workshops

The skills you have learned through pieces of training, workshops, seminars, or certificates, can be considered for college credit. If you have a document that confirms the hours you attended a training, you may be able to earn college credit based on the hours you attended.

Life Learning Experience

We know lessons you’ve learned from life experience is valuable! Examples of this include owning a business, pursuing a hobby, parenting children, volunteering, and public speaking. As long as you have 3+ years of experience and can demonstrate what you have learned, you may be able to earn credit for life experience.

Documentation

Each portion of experience needs to be supported by a supporting document and scanned into your overall portfolio. This can include audio/video recordings of presentations, theatrical samples, performances, etc. If you do include audio/video, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo and include the hyperlink in the corresponding document or portfolio.