Experiential Essays
An experiential essay is a unique form of writing that describes your personal experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Unlike other types of essays, it doesn’t rely on academic citations or external references. Instead, it draws directly from your own life and reflections.
Simply put, it is writing about what you know best, which basically covers anything of interest you may have done or experienced.
Here are some essential tips for crafting an effective experiential essay:
Introduce yourself through a short 500+ word bio. You’ll write this just once with your initial life experience application even if you write more than one journal for potential credit.
There are hundreds of acceptable topics which include almost anything that people do during a normal life.
Taking care of children
Caring for an elderly parent/grandparent
Moving to a new environment – state-city-country
Experiencing racism/xenophobia
Planning/managing a funeral, grieving process
Personal skills – photography, artist, singing, acting. Tutoring
Personal studies/activities genealogy, religion, community service, horticulture, public speaking etc.
A format/outline for the essay is provided. The number of credits earned depend on the total number of words in the essay.
A 1000 word essay generates 1 credit – A 200o word essay is worth 2 credits – A 3000 word essay offers the most, at 3 credits.
I wrote three 3000 word essays in a week for 9 credits. I also wrote shorter essays since the limit for combined credits earned via PLA and Experiential essays is 30.
The following costs for credits and classes varies among colleges and universities and are subject to change.
Tuition Per Credit Hour Across all school types, the average college cost per credit is $477. However, credit hours are priced differently across institution types.
Since a typical college class is worth three credits, one college class at the average American college costs $1,677 in tuition ($559 x 3 = $1,677).
Now to be considered a full-time student, the usual minimum course load is 12 credit hours per semester, and earning a bachelor’s degree needs at least 120 credit hours. ⏱️
CLEP Exams & CLEP Exam Test Prep | Study.com
In conclusion, I earned 30 college credits with CLEP and 30 more with PLA and Experiential Essays which eliminated 2 years of class attendance and getting the BS degree in just two years.
JR