Maybe I need to take a look into SAM.
My cousin went to UTI and then started his own garage in Texas. http://www.dealershipalternative.com/ He works on mostly Toyota, Lexus, Mazda and Honda. I think he’s got something like 10 techs now working for him, he’s making a shit load of money too. I don’t know anything personally about the school but it worked well for him, just sayin.
I have 2 associates degrees, a bachelors and my masters with a total of under 32K in school loans. All of these degrees are from real accredited colleges, not overpriced trade schools.
To me, ECCs automotive program looks like a screaming deal over the expensive trade schools.
I want a more in depth approach than ecc can provide me basically.
My point is that you should bite the bullet and go to a real college. So you have some Math, Science and English homework. Suck it up and become something big. My program at Buff State was full of 40yo former Auto techs that were sick of wrenching. Do it while you are young.
I’m going for my general shit now, so I can at least get an associates degree, just in case.
Not that an associates degree will do shit for me, it will help me get a bit farther in another college if I decide to go back.
I really want to be involved with cars for a living. I’ve had all types of jobs and most of the ones I’ve walked out on were shitty cubicle jobs or factory jobs, lol.
If you enjoy wrenching but realize that its not lucrative enough to live off without busting your ass, you really only have two options. 1st is to open your own garage. Do real quality work for less than the AAA place will, or go to school, learn it, and then finish school and teach it. Teaching is a pretty honorable profession you can have a ton a fun doing. Especially if you get a subject people look into only when they are interested.
2 of my friends went to ohio tech(1 graduated with the bmw program) and 2 went to uti, all of them do not work on cars currently. Why? the two from ohio tech cant seem to find a good job and the one of the guys who went to uti quit that school and the other got out and made no money. Now my other friend went to ecc auto tech and is a tech at west herr.
But if you take the job offerings the school gives you, I heard it works out. But, you will not be working in new york if you want to stay local.
the hard part about this is
-being a grad. right out of school, your probably broke
-you have a $30k loan to start paying back with 10 months
-it is a huge risk i would imagine to open a business
-opening a business would mean more loans, which you would need a side job for most likely
Not saying its impossible, but it seems like a lot of trouble and a big risk.
I keep going back to boces where I took auto collision and every time I’m there I think about how cool it would be to teach auto tech. I love sharing new things I’ve learned with other people, and helping people learn.
That might be a way I’d be willing to go as a career
I went to Alfred State and still feel to this day it was worth every penny. But it takes a few years to make a good living at it , anyone who claims you will leave making 60,000 a year should be shot .Its more like 30 from what I hear and be prepared to prove your self and take all the shit jobs the boss will hand you becouse all you have is a piece a paper and nothing really to back it up. ASE help but then again any one can study and be a good test taker, not to bash the true wrenches here that back that up every day. I took my degree and applied it to being a manager and now work as a claims adjuster 8 years later. So the vast knowledge I gathered from a school in the midddle of no where from teachers and other students has rewarded me very well.
Teaching auto tech is fun, easy and the benefits are great. I am so glad I did not end up busting my ass as an auto tech. I really don’t know any auto techs that have been working for a long time that don’t hate being auto techs.
UTI flew me out to so cal last year to check out their facility and tell my students how great they are. I just went for the free trip. I have to admit I was very impressed with the school and program. If you are really set on being an auto tech then UTI is a nice place to go.