Portfolio Assessment Credits? What's Possible?

[Storm2313]

I'm a complete rookie to this college thing. I completed high school with a GED and started working very soon after. I have worked for 3 fortune 500 companies and included a copy of my resume for evaluation by the forum readers as a guide for my best options in schooling from the big 3 for the most credit. The thought of starting from scratch is ridiculous:puke:

I think it's pretty much known without saying that I need to complete this ASAP due to unemployment timeline restrictions. I have enough savings to hold me out for about 15 months and want to make sure it's possible to complete this if my focus is on school for the said timeline.

My degree focus would be Buisness Management (My resume reflects managment fields in mostly a manufacturing environment).

I appreciate any assistance provided by those more knowledgeable than I on this matter. cheersmate

My resume is listed below:

CAREER OBJECTIVE

Accomplished, versatile and high performance Inventory Planner seeking an opportunity to secure a challenging role where strong professional experience, technical and IT expertise and an exemplary work ethic can be leveraged to support an organization to achieve its established goals.

KEY QUALIFICATIONS

• Demonstrates proven technical expertise in all areas of the IT with a specialization in SAP.
• Recognized experience in Inventory Planning, Purchasing, Vendor Customer Accounting, FDA Sterilization Requirements, Material Expediting, PRISM MRP, and KanBan systems.
• Proven time management and multitasking abilities; skillfully balances competing priorities.
• Displays a collaborative work ethic and a superior level of adaptability and initiative.
• Outstanding combination of communication, interpersonal, organizational and leadership skills.
• Self-directed and dependable; works autonomously without supervision.
• Blends integrity, innovative thinking, and leadership attributes to ensure results.
• Displays strong decision-making talents, critical thinking skills, and an unwavering drive to excel.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Bausch & Lomb Pharmaceuticals, Tampa, FL, 09/08 to 07/10Chemical / Plastic Inventory Planner
• Directly contributed to company performance by offering expertise, reliability, and continuity in all areas of the inventory planning function, leading to optimized levels of inventory control and cost control.
• Skillfully managed 400 separate components valued in excess of $50 million using a KanBan push/pull system in PRISM MRP to ensure the timely and compliant turning of inventory.
• Functioned as an information resource, managing Gamma and ETO componentry sterilization on a weekly basis, and provided comprehensive spreadsheet reports for senior management analysis.
• Demonstrated a recognized ability to manage 30 individual KanBan orders on a weekly basis, utilizing PRISM MRP to generate comprehensive reports for weekly inventory material on hand meetings.
• Created and implemented 9 reporting queries in PRISM to justify orders placed and demonstrate direct demand for management review, supporting short and long-term material planning.
• Played a pivotal role in an integrating consignment project that eliminated excess chemical and plastic inventory, reducing the amount of hand to 2.5 months cumulative, generating significant cost savings.
• Collaborated closely with the Purchasing Manager to improve vendor efficiency through improved forecasting, reporting, and verification of individual component requirements.
• Responsible for the accurate, compliant, and confidential P67 reporting for material destruction in accordance with expiration dating regulations and quality assurance standards.
• Evaluated and established sterilization testing and FDA requirements for all components and maintained accurate records to ensure compliance for all buyers and related components.
• Successfully coordinated international vendor requests to expedite required emergency components from FDA custom holds or potential expiration issues.
• Served as a strategic business partner to senior management, providing up-to-date reports of all buyer requisition purchases, inventory concerns, and material planning programs.

Nestle Water North America, Zephyrhills, FL, 2004 to 2008Full Good Inventory Systems Administrator
• Seamlessly managed the inventory control function in a 4.2M warehouse with responsibility for material management, product organization, inventory reconciliation, shrinkage, and product handling.
• Leveraged strong analytical systems to develop and implement innovative processes and systems that improved accuracy levels, data integrity, reporting and response times to all production areas.
• Applied superior critical thinking skills to conduct monthly inventory counts; identified discrepancies and implemented immediate corrective actions to reconcile physical versus system levels on SAP.
• Collaborated closely with production managers to forecast inventory requirements, maintain optimum inventory levels versus production schedules and reduce shrink and overall costs.

Continued …

• Merged solid technical abilities and SAP expertise to prepare and present comprehensive production reports for each department, facilitating short and long-term business planning at senior level.
• Provided coaching, mentoring and training to warehouse personnel; enforced stringent product handling procedures prior to distribution and led the warehouse inventory control team in inventory investigations.

Selected Highlights
• Earned senior management recognition for an exemplary work ethic, demonstrated record of success and the consistent achievement of 93% accuracy levels versus the established goal of 90%.
• Recognized with increasing levels of responsibility; selected as department trainer, and assigned responsibility for the warehouse consolidation and the annual fiscal year end inventory count.

United Parcel Service, Dallas, TX, 2000 to 2004Shipping Supervisor
• Strategically directed daily operations in the shipping department with supervisory and HR responsibility for 10 warehouse associates; fostered a team environment with an emphasis on goal attainment.
• Devised and implemented key organizational improvements that significantly increased package handling and tracking accuracy and increased productivity by 700+ pieces per hour.
• Worked closely with the Shipping Manager to evaluate operations, identify areas for improvement and areas of non-value added activity and introduced more efficient and streamlined processes.

Selected Highlights
• Received the Supervisor of the Month award and the Employee of the Month award on two occasions.
• Recipient of a UPS commendation for successfully increasing scanning accuracy levels to +96%.

Gold’s Gym, Spring Hill, FL, 1996 to 2000Assistant General Manager
• Provided superior levels of support to the General Manager in all areas of personal training, HR, staff training, accounting, business development, program development and customer service.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

UPS Management Program (Graduation Certificate)
Six Sigma, Nestle

ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE

• Manage and own a successful online Ebay company with responsibility for online marketing, content management, page rank, business development, accounting, customer service and client relations.

COMPUTER SKILLS

MS Office Suite: MS Word, MS Excel, MS Access, MS PowerPoint; MS Outlook; SAP; PRISM MRP; All MS Windows OS; computer building, troubleshooting software and hardware problems, and Internet Applications

[cookderosa]

Welcome to the board. As you start this journey- spend a month here learning how it works. 1 month here will ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY give you the tools needed to complete your degree within your time frame. I promise. However, jumping in without know how it works will come back to bite you.

PLA- bad idea, search the archives. Not cheaper, not faster and lots of work. 4x cost of a test but with no promise of credit.

The idea about starting from scratch is ridiculous. I hear you. I do. I think most of the people here are adults, and most feel the same thing- what are they going to teach you in "college" that you need for your career? Well, just to put it out there- NOTHING. (start with that idea, that way if something happens to apply to work it will excite and delight you )

A college degree is a credential. The sooner you see it as such, the better you will do mentally. The romantic notion of education is nice, and learning for the love of it, etc is nice. That's not the same thing as what you are about to do. You are about to jump through someone else's hoops to meet their criteria and in exchange you can have a piece of paper saying so. Hate math? Me too, it's a hoop. Hate English? It's a hoop. Hate psychology? It's a hoop. You do the hoops, you get the degree. If/how you change and grow in the process is a personal thing- and so if you come into the process feeling like the colleges owe YOU something for being so experienced, you're seeing it backward. They owe you nothing- they provide the hoops. What adult learners need to know, is that work is work, and college is college.

It's possible that part of you sees earning a degree as going backward. (To be honest, I did!) and you might even have teachers younger than you who are idiots (I did). There are other things I've watched people here almost give up- because one advisor told them one thing- another advisor told them something else. A grade on a paper wasn't right in their opinion, they were too afraid to assert themselves in a situation,etc. That's the bull that you (as an experienced adult) should be able to see past. Dealing with difficult people and situations is hard for young people. Once you get your mindset in the right camp, it's just a matter of picking a degree- plugging in the requirements and moving forward!

What possibilities are swirling around in your head? IT? Business? Accounting? Management? etc. Start there. Since you have no credits, you are actually in the PERFECT situation because you can go after any degree you want! You don't have to worry about making old credits fit into a new plan.

What are your weaknesses? Math? Writing? What are you willing to learn vs what do you want to avoid at all costs? That's a good second step.

Which schools offer the degree fitting your needs? *likely all 3, but not in every case.

Compare that degree at each school, side by side- which credits can you test out of? Which do you need a class for? Where would you take the class? (online, local college, etc)

Compare the ease of each based on what you perceive as easy.

Compare the costs of each.

Pick one.

Make a plan of attack. What do you need, how will you do it, what materials do you need to make it happen, where will you test, WHEN will you take each class/test.

Go! Work the plan.

[frankiebleyes]

Unless you have had a recent english course experience and therefore feel comfortable in passing a CLEP 6 hour english test, I would strongly recommend starting out with Straighterline for English 1 and 2 as they are required as basic courses in most courses. Any of the Big 3, especially TESC will take them from Straighterline. If you can complete the coursework in under a month the cost is only $100.00 per course. I failed the CLEP test by 1 point and pursued my first english course through Straighterline and completed it within two weeks, tested out of my second course through my local community college. Cookderosa's advice is right on. Good luck and welcome to the board.

[creative]

I agree with Cook, she gives a very good overview of what you are dealing with here. I also agree that this is going to involve some research on your part--- you will need to spend a few weeks (or more) to read through threads and come up with an idea of how this works and more importantly--how is it going to work for you. This path is not a "one size fits all" route to getting a degree. You will need to read a LOT of threads to get an idea of how you are going to make a road map work for you. Many, many decisions will need to be made along the way. You will have to be a creative thinker I can not speak from experience with PLA. Not many people on this forum go that route due to extra expense, time etc. However, here is a post of someone who took that route and it worked for her-- go here. So this is what we mean-- you will need to read, read, read , and sift through lots of info to make a plan. Invest the time