Shortly after I was appointed director of the Fire Science Program I met with the community college counseling office. I was learning the process to submit students for graduation.
There was a perceptible shudder when I introduced myself. “Firefighters are always a challenge.” The counseling director explained that the paper forms they used to process graduation applications had space for 4 sources of transfer information. (It was a long time ago – before electronic student records.)
Some students will graduate with our degree but including coursework completed when they were in the military, took a CLEP exam, and/or attended another educational institution. Many fire science students were bringing twice as many sources for academic credit. The counseling office needed to create an addendum transfer credit form.
I routinely submitted graduation applications with six sources of transfer credit. The record number was 17 sources. That pattern continued when I moved to the university and ran a bachelor degree completion program.
Firefighters bring more sources of transfer credit than any other group of students. That means we need to make it easy for academic counselors and program directors to approve transfer credits early in your shift-work scholar efforts.
GET YOUR TRANSCRIPTS NOW
You need to order official transcripts from every place you went to get college credit, including the places where you registered but did not finish a class. Send the official transcript to your academic institution and request an unofficial copy be sent to you.
Each college or university will have a place to request a transcript, some will offer it on-line.
Let’s look at the sources for your academic credit:
Military: ACE credit for military experience – Joint Services Transcript
Academic institution: Each has specific website/process, this includes Public, private. for-profit, federal and military academic institutions.
AMERICAN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (ACE) COLLEGE CREDIT RECOMMENDATIONS
Does my technical training receive ACE credit? You can look it up in the National Guide to College Credit for Workforce Training. Here are some fire-based organizations have received ACE college recommendations:
- National Fire Academy
- California Department of Forestry – Fire Academy
- Fire Department of New York City
- Illinois Fire Service Institute
- Fire and Rescue Training Institute, University of Missouri
- Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute
- Texas Engineering Extension Service
- Virginia Department of Fire Programs
- West Virginia University Fire Service Extension
- Bergen County Law and Public Safety Institute
Having completed a technical course with ACE College Credit Recommendation does not guarantee that your college or university will accept the credit. Each institution can have a different policy or procedure based on their needs and goals.
DO IT NOW
It may take a couple of weeks to get the transcripts delivered. Getting all of your transcripts sent to the college/university and meeting with your academic counselor early will provide a clear pathway to your graduation goal.