Your Professional Portfolio – Learning As A Lifestyle

At the Center for Lifelong Learning, we just finished the 2nd Annual Women’s Leadership Symposium. Participants received certificates with five contact hours or 0.5 Continuing Education Units. The symposium featured local and nationally-known leaders. Our featured guest was Barbara Dooley, First Lady of Georgia Football, television host, and author. Dr. Joe Delap presented the Distinguished Alumnus Award to Deborah Price and the Distinguished Undergraduate Award to Britney Locke.

This was a good opportunity to add training to our professional portfolios. If you are a professional, you should be keeping a portfolio. A professional portfolio is something you keep for a lifetime. Your portfolio is a reminder of trainings and a place to store awards and letters of recognition. Your portfolio is a history of all you have done and an invaluable resource when applying for new jobs or trying for a promotion.

My portfolio is not just a collection of certificates I have earned. It includes samples of my work. When I write an article for a journal or a newspaper, I include it in my portfolio. When I present on a topic, I keep the advertisement for the talk. When I volunteer for a community program, I keep the thank you note.

Do not get the idea that I am doing a great job keeping this portfolio. Like most people, I get busy and forget. I have an envelope of scrap papers that need to be added to my portfolio. The point is, if you don’t have a professional portfolio, it may be time you put one together. You never know what opportunities are just around the corner.

Are you looking to update your skills? Are you thinking about starting your own business? Do you want to change careers? Job security is not what it used to be, and many employees are considering alternatives.

At the Center for Lifelong Learning, we offer several certificate programs and courses to renew your skills. “Certificate holders earn 20% more than workers who hold only a high school diploma…and more than one-third of certificate holders also have Associate’s degrees or Bachelor’s degrees.” (from Inside Higher Education, June 6, 2015)

On Thursday, April 27, from 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., we will be offering Building Pivot Tables. Pivot Tables are one of Excel’s most powerful tools for data analysis. Topics in this class will include: identifying the primary use of Pivot Tables, filtering, sorting, and grouping Pivot Table data; using Pivot Charts and conditional formatting; tailoring Pivot Table calculations to your requirements; and summarizing data. The fee is $55.

Friday, April 28, from 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. we will offer ISO 9001:2015 Transition Training. This course will teach you the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System, and how those requirements differ from the ISO 9001:2008 standard. You will also learn how to plan and implement the new 2015 standard within your organization and how to prepare for the upcoming audits that will reflect the new requirements. The fee is $495 which includes lunch.

For those who are very busy, the Center offers a wide variety of certificate courses online. Most can be finished in less than a year, some in only six months, and a few of them in only six weeks.

Find out more about our courses and events on our website – www.athens.edu/cll – or call us at 256-233-8260.
By: Wanda Campbell
Center for Lifelong Learning – 121 South Marion Street, Athens, AL 35611 – 256-233-8262