Allen White

The Finish Line is in Sight

I've been taking college classes, and if all the planets align themselves properly I'll graduate in May, 2008 with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.

A little background - 35 years ago I attended Kent State University, as a Theatre major, and lasted about two years. After about six months as a receiving clerk in a home appliances store and as a door-to-door salesman I attended the local community college and got an Associates Degree in Data Processing, which started my career in this business.

About 20 years ago I went back to college to pursue Electrical Engineering, because I was spending a lot of my time at work troubleshooting data communications processes. That lasted about a year and a half. I then went back to school 5 years after that, this time pursuing something I thought I'd enjoy - Journalism. That lasted a couple of years, but ended when I changed jobs, because the new job took too much time for school.

Two years ago I decided I needed to focus on school, and Baldwin-Wallace has a program to give you college credit for the things you've learned in life, a program they call Prior Learning Assessment. I started taking classes, and this week I completed the PLA portfolio, requesting credit for six Computer Science classes for which I believe I have sufficient business experience to equate to the concepts they teach in these classes, plus a class in Public Speaking. Those of you who know me will giggle at that. If all the classes are accepted that will give me 23 hours towards my degree.

This summer I'm taking three classes, two more in the fall and then three in the spring, and once those are complete I will have achieved that Bachelor's Degree I started working on 35 years ago.

Maybe the discussion is premature, but it's nice to see that I've got a defined end point now.

Allen