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My son found some school he is considering in leiu of a degree in automotive engineering. It is a 142 week school (give or take a few weeks due to defective memory) that costs $34,000. Upon granduation they have every kind of Mechanic certification there is. Supposedly racing teams and Luxury perfromance car companies like Porsche like to hire their graduates.
Is anyone familiar with this school or this type of school? What are career options coming out of such a place? Are jobs readily available or are there very few truely good jobs? Can they make enough to pay off student loans and live decently?
I think long term, he wants to open his own performance shop and tweak cars. He has not made any decisions, it is just somthing he is considering. Building a super fast car seems more fun to him than drawing one. He wants to be the next carroll shelby
Not familiar with the particular program. Does the $34k cover all 142 weeks? That’s less than a lot of community college degrees… I would be wary of all the dream jobs and expectations outlined in the brochure as most of the time they are not reality. An automotive engineering degree from an accredited school will go much farther and open more doors than any crash course technician degree. That being said, everyone’s wants and needs are different.
Haven't looked on their site to see if they have degrees in mechanics or not, but my son went to ITT. He studied to be an IT tech and was hired for $40K/year plus family insurance and other benefits. He was hired a semester before he graduated and the company that hired him paid for the last semester. Stayed there 3 years and another company came to him to see if he would want to work for them. Over $10K raise and more benefits. But he paid about what your son would have to pay. The reason I was telling you all that about my son (besides bragging! lol) is to show you that there are some of these schools out there who will work with you to find you a job. Good luck to your son!
UNiversity of Northwest Ohio. They have an "automotive/performance" program. If he goes that route he would try to get the eight basic certifications through the classes he is taking in high school which would cut the class requirements (and cost down). Finish any remaining certifications at UNO. Then he would work as a mechanic to gain expereince, while taking business school classes at night, then probably come to dad for help with financing a business start up. (The last is my guess).
I am not sure that is necessarily a bad plan. The alternative, engineering school and then designing a piston for a Focus for years and years, would pay better, but no necessarily all that much better long term. I am not sure the performance/mechanic route would not be more interesting than the engineering drone path. Of course some of the drones get to move up to something more interesting. I think he could do well on either path, but I am not sure.
What I do nto know is whether UNO is considered a good auto tech school and whether there are decent jobs actually available for its graduates. I have no doubt he will graduate in the top of his class if he goes there (becasue he is flat out brilliant when he applies himself - which is not always easy to get him to do, except where he is interested). But what kind of jobs are actually out there, and what do they pay? For you mechanics out there, is ist a decently intersting job, or is it interminably boring?
As a former mechanic, and like I said before there’s no money to be made in this field anymore. $34k is a lot of moeny and chances are he'll still end up changing oil after graduation
I’d look into the Think Big Program at Caterpillar.
My experience is on the motorcycle side of mechanics, but the school used the same BS draw of "race teams and high performance companies like to hire our graduates" to entice clueless people (me). While it Might be true, for a very small handfull of individuals, they were decidedly *NOT* hired directly out of the program. I went through my schooling back in 1999~2000, so it's not like I came out into a dead market, there were TONS of opportunities available back then and what I found (may be specific to MC, may not) is that an employer absolutely would not hire you because you'd been through that school, or they would hire you, but at a drastically lower pay scale.
My first job out was actually in the racing industry as I desired (I found the company, promoted myself, and made the hire work ~ not one single company came looking for me, and I was consistently the top individual in my class), I made enoug money to rent a room in a shared house, eat sparingly and pay on my very small school loan (was only $10k, I put savings towards the loan to knock it down). No cell phone, no eating out, no health care, relying on my motorcycle w/ 120k miles on it as my only transportation... it was a sink-hole and after 8 months I jumped ship and went back to my prior career in IT. I still vividly remember that first IT paycheck and feeling like this HUGE burden had been lifted from my life.
Now days I suggest the same thing my dad told me (too bad it fell on deaf ears). If you're going to pay for school, make sure you end up with a DEGREE, not a certificate. Certificates are less valuable than toilet paper, but a degree can open doors for most jobs (or, that was true 5+ years ago.... takes nepotism to open doors today).
I appreciate what I learned in school, but the lies and misleading propaganda/advertising really detracts from the experience. I'm making my own way these days, owning my own shop, working for myself. I don't really tell anyone (but the guys who seem to be keeping up with the Jonses) about my school/certificates and it doesn't hinder me. But I also have a wife now, and HER income covers all of our living expenses/needs so I'm free to do as I desire. I couldn't do it without her.
I am not sure that is necessarily a bad plan. The alternative, engineering school and then designing a piston for a Focus for years and years, would pay better, but no necessarily all that much better long term. I am not sure the performance/mechanic route would not be more interesting than the engineering drone path. Of course some of the drones get to move up to something more interesting. I think he could do well on either path, but I am not sure.
The difference is, he will design that piston only if he wants a job designing pistons. The only “engineering drones” I know of are the ones that take jobs that they don’t have much interest in and then get and pigeon-holed, the majority enjoy what they do and are face with wide variety of challenges each day. With the engineering degree he will be proficient in all the automotive aspects; I’m sure he already knows how to wrench, so a step further is understanding the theory behind what he’s working with... if he wants to open a shop someday then he will be able to do it, as an expert. Why bolt on parts that someone else designed and patented when you could have potentially done it all yourself? Though I would suggest getting a few jobs out of college first to get some real world experience in industry.
Decades ago there was a greater need for mechanics that were highly skilled in diagnostics, nowadays that need is greatly diminished with the advancement of electronically controlled systems that diagnose themselves. Automotive technicians are on the path to only referencing codes, swapping out parts and not much more.
My son went on to UTI (Universal Technical Inst.) after college. Their Step Program is awesome! He wasn't happy doing what he was doing....UTI was perfect for him. From there, BMW adopted him and paid off his student loan, as well as their own BMW schooling, as long as he stayed with them for 5 yrs. He has been there for 9 yrs now, made Master Tech a few yrs back and makes VERY good money. They send him back to classes for refresher courses and for the new technology coming on the market.
I know they have different programs, Auto, Marine, Motorcycle and Diesel. They also have various schools around the country.
Now we know why it cost so much to maintain a BMW!
You would think! But the ratio of the amt. of hourly work he does, compared to what BMW charges....He gets not even half!
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You would think! But the ratio of the amt. of hourly work he does, compared to what BMW charges....He gets not even half!
