.svg)
The Practicum
Discipling our human doing through faithful work in the marketplace.
.svg)
Why We Work
Work is not a consequence of the Fall. It's actually part of how we image God. Before sin ever entered the world, God placed Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. When you labor, build, solve, and serve, you’re doing something profoundly human: participating with God as a co-laborer in the ongoing restoration of His creation.This is the theology beneath everything we do in The Practicum. It’s not a job you work to pay for school, and it’s not simply a launching pad into a career. It’s a place where your faith gets tested — where you learn to apply God's truth in the ordinary, secular spaces of a job site, an office, or a shop floor. The marketplace becomes a proving ground for what you actually believe and an opportunity to give witness to a faithful God.
A Journey, Not a Destination
Most 18-year-olds start a journey with some idea of where they're headed. Yet often, by the end, they've discovered it's not quite where they thought. That's not a failure of planning. That's how calling actually works. Calling is less about deciding what you'll do before you've lived any life, and more about discovering who you are as you go — and then letting what you do flow out of that.So rather than asking you to declare a field of study at eighteen, The Practicum lets you discover it through twenty-four months of real experience. You'll work. You'll be trusted with more as you prove faithful with less. You'll build real, marketable skills. And you'll learn to recognize, name, and document them along the way. At the end of the journey, you and your mentors will look back at what has actually emerged, and that evidence will become your degree emphasis.
Why the Marketplace
The marketplace teaches things a classroom cannot. Employer research consistently shows that a large majority of job success comes down to soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, initiative, showing up… not technical know-how. And yet those are exactly the skills that get the least intentional training, both in traditional education and on the job. The Practicum closes that gap directly, building those foundational skills through real workplace responsibility from day one.
At the same time, the way employers hire is changing. A growing share of employers now hire based on demonstrated skills rather than degrees or GPA alone, but most college students don't know this is happening or how to prepare for it. Excel students do. Every competency you build in The Practicum is recognized, documented, and translated into a Vocational Dossier — a living record of what you can actually do, ready to hand to an employer who's looking for exactly that kind of evidence.
.svg)
Soft Skills Training
Most job success comes down to soft skills, not technical know-how. Yet soft skills are the least intentionally trained. Throughout your time at Excel, you'll build the communication, teamwork, discipline, and critical thinking skills that make you the kind of person any employer wants on their team.
Outcomes Based
Success here is measured by real outcomes, not test scores. You, your boss, and Excel faculty regularly document the responsibilities and competencies you're demonstrating on the job as part of your Vocational Dossier.
.jpg)
Discover, then Declare
Calling is revealed over time. As you work, your coach and faculty help you notice your strengths, name your gifts, and see where God seems to be at work. At the end of the journey, you and your mentors declare the emphasis that reflects what actually emerged.
Build Your Network
Build a lifelong network of friends, mentors, marketplace leaders, and employers as you engage with our continually growing network, on and off campus.
Graduate With a Dossier
By documenting real competencies gained through real work, you'll graduate with a Vocational Dossier — tangible, demonstrated proof to employers that you have what it takes to succeed in the marketplace.
How We Do It:
The Process
Step 1
Discover
Start your Journey
From the very beginning, you're working. You'll use tools like DISC and Strengths Finder, look back at your work history for clues about where you thrive, and start asking: What skills do I want to build? Where do I add real value? From there, you can make decisions about where and how you want to engage in the marketplace.
Step 2
Build
Grow in Responsiblity
As you work, you develop foundational professional skills — financial stewardship, time management, workplace attitude, communication — while progressively earning greater trust and responsibility from your employer. You’ll document each new competence as they emerge, building your Vocational Dossier in real time rather than reconstructing it later.
Step 3
Document
Prove What You've Learned
Employers increasingly hire based on demonstrated ability rather than a degree alone, yet most students don't know how to show it. At Excel, we’re tackling that problem. Throughout your work experience, you'll receive regular feedback from your employer and reflect on your own growth, learning to name what you're actually becoming capable of. You'll finish with a Capstone semester, completing your Vocational Dossier and declaring the degree emphasis that reflects your demonstrated experience. At the end, you'll graduate with a resume built on real, proven competency.
Students in the Marketplace
Below are just a few examples of recent graduates showcasing their professional dossiers. Click "Learn More" to see what your dossier will look like when you graduate.
Koehn Manthei
.jpg)
For the first 15 months of the accelerated bachelor's program, I gained a broad foundation of wisdom through a 15-month intensive study of the liberal arts, with an emphasis in philosophy. Then in January of 2024, I began working in The Excel Creative art studio. My work focused primarily on audio engineering, but it included all aspects of music production, like writing, arranging, producing, mixing, mastering, and performing my original music, as well as producing and mixing music for other artists. By the end of my time at Excel, I had mixed and produced my own EP. In the future, I hope to use the skills I learned here to empower other artists, bringing their creative ideas to life. I purposely learned every step of the process of producing a song so that I could help anyone with any step along the way.
Carter Abney
.jpg)
Starting my real estate journey in April 2024, I knew I had a lot to learn. While pre-licensing coursework gave me the foundation in contracts, property law, and market principles, I quickly realized that knowledge alone wouldn’t make me successful. I made it a priority to study the market consistently, ask questions, and lean on mentors for guidance. Slowly, I realized that expertise isn’t just about time in the industry—it’s about preparation, effort, and how well you listen to your clients’ needs. Not sure what I would be able to accomplish in my first year, I was thrilled when I helped buyers purchase a house for the first time in August, just four months after getting my license. Each challenge reinforced that real estate is about more than just closing deals—it’s about guiding people through uncertainty and helping them make informed decisions. Not long after, I secured my first listing for sellers, which felt like a major breakthrough. Since then, I've been able to sell three homes within my first year in the industry.
Katie Schmidt
In my role as a Social Media Manager at Provisions Mercantile and Radius Chiropractic, I have gained immense knowledge on content creation, marketing strategies, and marketing execution. One of the key strengths I have developed is creating effective content strategies that align with the brand's objectives and target audience. I have honed my skill of discovering trends early on and customizing them to fit the company's brand. This helps the business reach their niche audience and stay relevant in the ever-changing realm of social media marketing. This has allowed me to build authentic connections with my audience while producing measurable results.
Joshua Pile
.png)
My training in media production didn’t necessarily happen in a classroom—it was something that matured through boots on the ground experiences behind my camera. It happened in intense disaster zones, on construction sites, firing ranges, in conversation with small business owners, and during tame coffee shop moments when I could put the camera down and finally reflect on what on Earth just happened. This has been a self-driven, deeply personal, and entrepreneurially rich journey that has taught me that in the end it’s been the relationships along the way that held the most value.
Matthew Conlin
Fueled by a desire to make a difference in wilderness settings, I pursued an associate's degree in Emergency Medical Science and worked diligently to obtain my Paramedic Certification. Along the way, I was honored to be elected class president, a role that allowed me to bridge communication between faculty and students while also earning my BLS, PALS, and ACLS certifications. Over the past three years, I've had the privilege to serve at Buncombe County EMS in both full-time and part-time positions. I've been trained as a Community Paramedic, and I take great pride in my role as a BLS instructor, where I've had the opportunity to teach several BLS and CPR classes.
Danielle Walz
I have served at Radius Chiropractic for almost 3 years now as a Chiropractic Assistant. This role has allowed me to grow my administrative skills in a medical office environment while serving the greater community of Asheville. Prior training for this position required a 6 month onboarding process that consisted of online training module videos, in person shadow experience, reading books and other online resources, and in person science training from local physicians and professionals.
See who our
students areworking for
What Parents Are Saying
Testimonials
Find Other Helpful Resources
Want to learn more or have other questions? Feel free to contact us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
PO Box #190
Ridgecrest, NC 28770
admissions@theexcelcollege.com
Newsletter Coming Soon