TESU portfolio tips

[tesu-acct-student]

...I'd love to hear a synopses of how you broke down an actual course for which you received credit.

I created the checklist for that very reason. I am the kind of person who needs to SEE what is going on.

I'll use ACC-340 as an example since I've already posted the CD. Keep in mind a couple things: 1. I have worked in accounting for 18 years, mostly as a freelancer. 2. I have a terrible case of "imposter's syndrome," which means that no matter how much evidence there is that I know something, I still have strong internal doubts. This explains why I need so much detail for my PLAs. Notice that somebody here has reported that he's done narratives with 7-9 pages. I don't think I could do that. TESU (supposedly) has a policy regarding the page count, and just to soothe my own internal doubt I must do at least the minimum.

ANYWAY...

I first get the checklist setup the way I described. Then I setup a folder on my computer specifically for the course. I have a folder called TESU, and I put this course folder inside the TESU folder beginning with the course number then the name. For example:

ACC-340 Accounting Systems and Concepts

I do them all like this so that they are organized alphabetically by course number within the TESU folder.

I look at the checklist and start gathering digital copies of things, such as relevant certificates (scan them if needed) and relevant articles I've written (saved as PDFs). These get saved into that folder.

Then I open Word and save two new documents: the bibliography and the narrative. I enter the heading and my name, then I save them in that folder, even though the docs are otherwise empty. It just gives me a small sense of accomplishment to do it this way. Plus it's a good place to take a break.

Now you can go a couple different directions: work on the bibliography or work on the narrative.

Narrative: copy and paste the bullet points from the CD into the narrative document. I include an Introduction in the beginning and talk a little bit about my background and why I am qualified to write this narrative. I also explain that I've copied and pasted directly from the LOs so that the reader understand what's going on. Then I just go through the bullet points points and start writing. Sometimes I am explaining a theoretical concept, sometimes I am telling a relevant story based actual experience. The bullet points have vocabulary so I always use that plus other relevant vocab. It is probably better to include some actual relevant stories, but I did one portfolio a few years ago and there were no stories, it was purely theoretical (ACC-121 Payroll Taxes).