Starting from essentially zero except for ten years work experience

[djarumlights]

Posting in the Big 3 forum as it seems this is probably the route I'll need to go. If it needs to be relocated, please do so!

Ok, so, storytime! Flubbed the whole actual college experience thing when that happened twenty years ago because reasons (health-related, mind you). What tatters of a GPA I have might amount to 0.6 and barely a sophomore (got a few mercy Ds so. . . yeah). C'est life. 

Went to work, started a family, and moved from slinging pizza to a career with an oilfield technology company, and have been doing that non-stop until the recent nosedive. 
Spent a couple years as a technician performing low to mid-grade IT and EET type field work then moved into a supervisory role over a team of the same sort I was along with other specialty disciplines (hydraulic/mechanical guys, heavy electricians and mechanics, PLC techs, etc). Spent seven to ten years growing in that role 'til they told me "so long and goodnight" a month ago. I knew it was coming. I'd previously told my manager to take me out back and shoot me first so the other guys could keep a job. 

I figure if I'm finally going to try for a degree, now is the time. Starting from scratch though. . . ouch! So I dug around and happened upon this particular forum. Found the whole Sophia thing and started poking at that. Before I dive off too deeply though, I wanted to ask those of you who've done this before/are doing now what my previous career might count for at TESU et al. Would you suggest I go ahead and try to at least get 101 and 102 level courses knocked out on Sophia while the opportunity is present or would that end up being redundant? 

Some additional points:

• I don't really have many records of accomplishments from work (my fault for not thinking ahead enough to safeguard some of the things I worked on). I could probably get some form of record of in-house classes I attended/passed from a previous manager, but validation beyond a list of course codes in a .xls file is nigh impossible as what was a phenomenal training department got gutted during some heavy reorganization a couple of years back. I could email each of the Big Three individually explaining all this, but I'm not ready for my phone and email to go completely nuclear. I need a plan and some straight talk before I commit a substantial sum of money and time to a specific institution.
  
• I can explain a typical day in the life of my previous role with great clarity, speak on what projects I was involved in, describe all sorts of major scenarios where I was in a lead capacity and communicating updates/issues to VP/P level management.
  
• Hopefully the writing style presented here indicates that I've got at least two-thirds a brain. Not sure if that helps my case or not.
  
• Not sure if it's relevant, but I'm not quite 40, so I've seen/done some things already far as life in general goes.
  
• Re-hash/TL;DR of experience: four to five years as a field tech doing EET and IT type work, seven to ten years in management with increasing responsibilities over time. 
  
• Re-hash/TL;DR of college credit onhand: HAH!
  

Alright, that's my story. I await your feedback!

Quick clarification: I understand it's not life experience credit per se, but the door is potentially open to have said experience evaluated for competency/credit. That's what I'm wanting to know about. How does that work? What's required? What should I gather up?

[ROYISAGIRL]

Posting in the Big 3 forum as it seems this is probably the route I'll need to go. If it needs to be relocated, please do so!

Ok, so, storytime! Flubbed the whole actual college experience thing when that happened twenty years ago because reasons (health-related, mind you). What tatters of a GPA I have might amount to 0.6 and barely a sophomore (got a few mercy Ds so. . . yeah). C'est life. 

Went to work, started a family, and moved from slinging pizza to a career with an oilfield technology company, and have been doing that non-stop until the recent nosedive. 
Spent a couple years as a technician performing low to mid-grade IT and EET type field work then moved into a supervisory role over a team of the same sort I was along with other specialty disciplines (hydraulic/mechanical guys, heavy electricians and mechanics, PLC techs, etc). Spent seven to ten years growing in that role 'til they told me "so long and goodnight" a month ago. I knew it was coming. I'd previously told my manager to take me out back and shoot me first so the other guys could keep a job. 

I figure if I'm finally going to try for a degree, now is the time. Starting from scratch though. . . ouch! So I dug around and happened upon this particular forum. Found the whole Sophia thing and started poking at that. Before I dive off too deeply though, I wanted to ask those of you who've done this before/are doing now what my previous career might count for at TESU et al. Would you suggest I go ahead and try to at least get 101 and 102 level courses knocked out on Sophia while the opportunity is present or would that end up being redundant? 

Some additional points:

• I don't really have many records of accomplishments from work (my fault for not thinking ahead enough to safeguard some of the things I worked on). I could probably get some form of record of in-house classes I attended/passed from a previous manager, but validation beyond a list of course codes in a .xls file is nigh impossible as what was a phenomenal training department got gutted during some heavy reorganization a couple of years back. I could email each of the Big Three individually explaining all this, but I'm not ready for my phone and email to go completely nuclear. I need a plan and some straight talk before I commit a substantial sum of money and time to a specific institution.
  
• I can explain a typical day in the life of my previous role with great clarity, speak on what projects I was involved in, describe all sorts of major scenarios where I was in a lead capacity and communicating updates/issues to VP/P level management.
  
• Hopefully the writing style presented here indicates that I've got at least two-thirds a brain. Not sure if that helps my case or not.
  
• Not sure if it's relevant, but I'm not quite 40, so I've seen/done some things already far as life in general goes.
  
• Re-hash/TL;DR of experience: four to five years as a field tech doing EET and IT type work, seven to ten years in management with increasing responsibilities over time. 
  
• Re-hash/TL;DR of college credit onhand: HAH!
  

Alright, that's my story. I await your feedback!

Quick clarification: I understand it's not life experience credit per se, but the door is potentially open to have said experience evaluated for competency/credit. That's what I'm wanting to know about. How does that work? What's required? What should I gather up?

Ok so question for you did you have to get any certifications for any of your jobs? If you did you can check if TESU or Excelsior (I'm not familiar with Charter oaks) takes those for credit. TESU has a page dedicated to some of the certification credits that they take. If you don't there is the Prior learning Assessment(PLA) which doesn't get as much attention here if there are better ways to earn credit. Also what degree are you trying for?

Definitely do the Sophia courses they are free and you'll most likely need them anyway.

[djarumlights]

Nothing formal or widely recognized with exception of the occasional safety program. I managed to find some of the intra-company certifications I acquired over time (basically compentency exams for our various product lines and such), so there's that. Former manager is going to poke thru his records to see what else he can find.

The degree that first stood out to me during the previous industry downturn was the B.S. in Technology Leadership at Fort Hays State. However, it seems they're stepping away from ACE credits soon, so that went out the window unless I wait around for CLEP to exist again. But why would I do that when there's a no-cost option to get ahead staring me in the face, beckoning from the light of the monitor?

After going line by line through Sophia's guaranteed transfers a few days ago, it'll end up being business admin, org leadership, or something along that line (Excelsior has a BPS - tech management, for example. TESU - Organizational Leadership. Didn't see anything at COCS or WGU that jumped out and said "HELLO!" loudly). I went through each institution and picked a possible direction at each, basically throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, I reckon. I would not object to the broad-based "professional studies" options either.

[ROYISAGIRL]

Nothing formal or widely recognized with exception of the occasional safety program. I managed to find some of the intra-company certifications I acquired over time (basically compentency exams for our various product lines and such), so there's that. Former manager is going to poke thru his records to see what else he can find.

The degree that first stood out to me during the previous industry downturn was the B.S. in Technology Leadership at Fort Hays State. However, it seems they're stepping away from ACE credits soon, so that went out the window unless I wait around for CLEP to exist again. But why would I do that when there's a no-cost option to get ahead staring me in the face, beckoning from the light of the monitor?

After going line by line through Sophia's guaranteed transfers a few days ago, it'll end up being business admin, org leadership, or something along that line (Excelsior has a BPS - tech management, for example. TESU - Organizational Leadership. Didn't see anything at COCS or WGU that jumped out and said "HELLO!" loudly). I went through each institution and picked a possible direction at each, basically throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, I reckon. I would not object to the broad-based "professional studies" options either.

I can't seem to post links, but I would do all the Sophia courses first since they stop being free in July. There is a page that has all the free credits do those next. Apply to Tesu to see what other courses you might need. Loking at the courses needed for Organizational Leadership won't be able to fully test out of it. Is that an issue?

[djarumlights]

Shouldn't be an issue in the grand scheme. Gonna do some additional reading about UExcel test-outs as well to see what other holes I can poke in this roof.

Good input. Thanks!

If anyone else cares to add to, please overload me with ideas. I like having a giant pile of resources to whittle down to one outcome.

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

I'd also start with those free Sophia courses--maybe any of their 1-credit ones, to get a feel for the platform while still learning productively. ALEKS (a math course provider for our purposes) is currently offering two courses for free for two months, if you start before April 30. Lastly, you could also look at the free TEEX (Texas A&M) course series, but they aren't going anywhere.

You'll have to do several gen ed courses for a BS degree, but you can get started on your journey right now by knocking out some of those Sophia offerings.

[djarumlights]

I'd also start with those free Sophia courses--maybe any of their 1-credit ones, to get a feel for the platform while still learning productively. ALEKS (a math course provider for our purposes) is currently offering two courses for free for two months, if you start before April 30. Lastly, you could also look at the free TEEX (Texas A&M) course series, but they aren't going anywhere.

You'll have to do several gen ed courses for a BS degree, but you can get started on your journey right now by knocking out some of those Sophia offerings.

I saw someone else reference the TEEX courses and poked around the A&M site a bit. Are all of those freebies or just certain ones?

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

Just the "Online for" Cyber series at the bottom of this page: https://teex.org/program/cybersecurity/.

You can read more about the courses here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...re-credits

Another free option is this ethical leadership course from the Institutes: https://web.theinstitutes.org/ethical-guidelines-cpcus

[bjcheung77]

C'est la vie, mon ami!  TLDR: Start with an ACE registry account, do all the Sophia.org & TEEX courses add them to ACE.  Skip TESU BSOL for BSBA HR Man & Organizational Management instead.  You can get all the required remainder of the courses from StraighterLine & Study.com combo.  You can add the OL Cert as well.  Here's a lengthy post of mine: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid304993

The reason I recommend BSBA HRM/OM vs BSOL is that the BSOL is NOT ACBSP but considered a Business degree and you can add an Organizational Leadership Cert with a couple more Study.com courses instead.  I'm not sure but it also sounds like you have an Entrepreneurial outlook, you may want to get a different AOS in Entrepreneurship instead and get a cert or two.  

Anyways, you can take a look at the following links:
TESU BSBA AOS options: https://www.tesu.edu/business/bsba
TESU BSOL: https://www.tesu.edu/business/bsol

Business Certs: https://www.tesu.edu/business/undergrad-certificates
Ops Man cert: https://www.tesu.edu/business/operations-management
Org Lead cert: https://www.tesu.edu/business/undergrad-...leadership

[djarumlights]

Hmm hnn! Ok, didn't know about needing the ACEnet account ahead of time. That's good stuff. I completed that teams course on Sophia this evening and am through with English Comp I except for the essays (those will need a full couple of days set aside to hammer out).

I will go through your other post more thoroughly later and consider the additional points you made about specific degrees, StraighterLine, etc.

Funny. While I personally am not seeking to do anything directly entrepreneurial (right now at least), I come from a self-employed family and have definitely dabbled in assisting others with start-up projects over time. Good eye!

Alright, so far this is a goodly amount of cake on which to chew! Hopefully someone else in the same boat who might have this same question/similar circumstances finds this useful down the road.