With a certain number of people education is not going to be absorbed no matter what. I’ve mentioned the new guy who came to work with us one time after getting an Associates Degree in Diesel Technology from a state sponsored university.
Day One involved a VW diesel towed in for a no-start condition. Two hours later he still had not gone through a 5 minute process to diagnose AND repair a blown glow plug fuse. And I told him from the get-go what the problem likely was…
I guess I am missing something in this discussion. Why does someone think they need this degree if they are not going to work in the field ? Plus there is long list of things that the do it yourself owner could not do without proper equipment .
I disagree. For people just starting out after school, there isn’t anything else to go on. After a few years, they better show accomplishments and advanced knowledge (read: experience), or they aren’t going anywhere.
I’ve worked with a few very senior software engineers who never finished college. Very knowledgeable and very very good engineers.
As a hiring manager I look for experience first. But we do hire junior engineers from time to time…and by far the best criteria is college degree. I can’t waste my time interviewing candidates who lack the basic skills to get started. A college degree in computer science from any decent accredited university shows me they probably have the ability to do the work. I waste my time or companies time on a candidates who can’t make it. Candidates with a proper education helps me with that.
A neighbor is the head of IT Security at a major US government department. No college degree.
Back to @YoshiMoshi3 - what do you want to do with automotive classes - personal satisfaction or a new career?
I’m NOT coming out against certificates . . .
I completed a recognized apprenticeship in europe . . . I could theoretically and legally work in many european countries as a mechanic. Anybody who doesn’t have the credentials is classified as something lesser.
so I have both that apprentice, plus ASE credentials up the whazoo here
And I have a ton of experience
The only thing I’m not crazy about is the idea of a training program officially connected to a specific manufacturer
The all-rounded guys are the best, in my opinion
ASE tests cost $400.
2 years of work experience are required to take ASE tests A1-A9.
Education/training can substitute for work experience;
A completed ASE accredited auto training program counts as 1 year of work experience.
A completed ASE accredited OEM sponsored co-op training program counts as 2 years work experience.
It seems that ASE favors the vehicle manufactures.
Toyota’s T-TEN training program is one example of a manufactures training program.
I’m not looking for a new career, more of personal satisfaction and personal knowledge. To better understand how my cars work, and to be able to better perform my own maintenance and recognize symptoms of failing parts. Sort of like it’s useful to have some home maintenance knowledge. Carpentry, plumbing, electrical, are all good things to know when you own a home, otherwise really expensive.
I figured it would at least be worth getting a degree or certificate. There might not be much point in that sense I’m not looking for a new career. However getting another degree or certificate would be something nice to list on my resume, so I figure why not if I can get one.
I don’t know, I just feel awkward taking classes without counting to some sort of recognized academic achievement. I wouldn’t want to list it on my resume, unless it was towards earning a degree or certificate. I feel like I could just leave it off, but then it would be kind of awkward to not have it on my resume, but then have it show up on a background check. It might raise some questions. If employer is going to know either way that I went to some school, might as well as have it on a resume, which would be best to have a degree or certificate.
So I’d prefer a recognized achievement that I can earn part time, one class at a time, while working full time in a different field.
One school includes their $8,000 snap on tool kit as part of the cost for the program, appears to be the same kit if you’re going for a degree or just a certificate.
Based on your stated goals I believe the associates is really what you should do at a community college. Although the degree seems to be just extra. The knowledge you get from a community college will greatly help in the knowledge you need to maintain and repair your vehicles. You personally will not have the benefit of commercial experience, making the education far more valuable. The more you learn though the more you want to do, and the more you do means more tools you’ll want. But it’s worth it if you enjoy tackling more than just fluid changes. I’ve shade trees for 35 years, then did a good community college auto program. Although I have little professional experience I can tackle a whole arsenal of problems and know I’ve done them right and safely.
I can understand your position, but in defense of corporate sponsorship for training programs, there are cases where they would not even exist without corporate sponsorship.
Taxpayer funded educational courses are mostly directed toward college prep. Our public schools have pretty much abandoned the industrial arts programs, partly because the cost per student is much higher than it is for college prep courses and general education.
Now we have become a nation that doesn’t know how to fix things. We learn how to generate profits and spend money on social programs, but little is spent on teaching people who are not college bound, skills that will sustain them and their families. And even college bound students aren’t always given skills they will need to earn a living either. Remember the Art History major?
“When it comes to obtaining automotive mechanical knowledge hands-on cannot be outdone”.
@ok4450. I agree and this extends to many fields. When we covered logic gates in the computer classes I taught, it was one thing to do the logic tables (0 AND 0 = 0, 0 AND 1 = 0, 1 AND 0 = 0, 1 AND 1 = 1, 0 OR 0 = 0, 0 OR 1 = 1, 1 OR 0 = 1, 1 OR 1 = 1, NOT 0 = 1, NOT 1 = 0) but what I did to make the point was to have one board with two knife switches in series controlling a light to represent AND, another board with two switches in parallel controlling a light to represent OR and one board with a single knife switch that bypassed the lightbulb through a resistor when closed to represent NOT. I would pass the three boards I constructed around the class and let the students play with the switches. I had a blind student in one class, so I connected a buzzer as well as a lightbulb in the circuit. I made a deal with the industrial technology department to use their electronics lab and had the students connect up the logic chips to do a few of the computer circuits. It made the hardware logic much more easily understood. I was assigned to teach a computer class for elementary majors. Most of these students were female. I took them over to the electronics lab and had them connect the logic chips. They had a blast. It also gave them confidence in what they could do.
I was assigned to teach a computer networking class. I came in during a break and saw a bunch of computers going to surplus. I grabbed them up, took over an empty room, rounded up some network adapter cards and had the students build a network. We had wires running everywhere, but it worked.
Just learning factual knowledge out of lectures and a textbook is only half the picture. The hands on experience really cements the knowledge in place. I can’t imagine a course in automobile repair without tearing into a car.
@Triedaq
Oh how I wish I’d had more teachers like you at all grade levels and in college!
My high school physics teacher was good about the hands on practical application of theory. I particularly remember the “aha” lesson about wave movement when our work groups were tasked with producing and controlling various wave movements with the original coiled metal Slinky toys.
In college I had an adjunct professor for two semesters of advertising. He owned a very successful advertising agency. Over the years he’d encountered too many college grads with communications degrees that knew all the textbook details about advertising such as print font, layout methods, etc. but had no clue how to create an effective ad. So he began teaching the two courses. He said, quite correctly, that few of us would end up working in advertising but that we would become more discerning consumers and have skills applicable to all fields of business.
Even now, decades later, I remember the core basics of what he taught. Help the client define the exact detail goal of the ad which focuses on what specific outcome from the ad defines success. Define the demographics of the target audience. Now make the logic link between the defined goal and defined target audience. Build the ad from there.
Now I, as most of you know, am not mechanically inclined. But I long since noted that how many of you describe how effective automotive work relies on following a similar logic link process in diagnosing problems and how to effect proper repairs.
The husband in a pair of dear friends is an engineer. When their daughter was a young girl he took the time and effort to have her help him with car maintenance, lawnmower maintenance, plumbing repairs, electrical repairs, and such around their home. He figured that a few greasy hands, scraped knuckles, and broken fingernails wouldn’t hurt her. She grew up to be the most self sufficient, confident young lady. Oh, and she ended up an engineer working for her state DOT specializing on road and bridge upgrade designs to adapt roads to the advancements in construction techniques and materials and to the changes in modern vehicle designs and speeds.
Every Physics class or even Chemistry class I took in college all had a Lab requirement. The labs were weekly and accounted for up to 40% of your overall grade. I don’t know of any decent University/College that teaches these types of science classes without lab work. Labs consist of experiments based on that weeks lecture. Then you write a paper of fill out a lab paper explaining your experiments and how it pertains to that weeks lecture. When my daughter finished her first year at MIT I picked her up in my 98 Pathfinder. Half the back end was filled up with boxes of her lab papers.
@MikeInNH
Yes, I had that too in college in my chemistry and biology classes. Never got to physics at the college level.
My high school chemistry and biology classes were lecture only with no lab work, sad to say. But my high school physics did have lab incorporated into regular class time.
I highly approve of how some school districts now have life skill classes for all students at various ages. Learning practicalities such as budgeting, bill paying, resumes and cover letters, interviewing, basic car maintenance, etc. should be part of every school’s curicculum.
@Marnet. Thank you for the compliment. Before I retired, a colleague at another institution and I did research on factors affecting success of students in freshman mathematics classes. We considered both the general studies math classes and freshman calculus. We had data from over 10,000 students at both a mid sized state university and a private college. A student earning an A or A- we classified as outstanding. The students earning B+ down to C grades we classified as satisfactory. Students with a C- or lower were classified as unsatisfactory. What was interesting is that the outstanding and satisfactory groups, the percentage of female students in these groups to the total number of female students was significantly higher than the percentage of male students to the total number of male students. This was true in both the general math classes and the calculus classes. Yet, in each classification group, the female students had lower SAT math scores.
I am convinced we over test students with statewide multiple choice exams and put too much emphasis on these scores.
I can relate this to automobile horsepower testing. The horsepower was determined by running the engine on a dynamometer with the ambient temperature at 20 degrees C and atmospheric pressure at 30" of mercury. When I was in high school, my family had a 1954 Buick V8 with a 263 cubic inch engine rated at 143 horsepower. Yet, it could out drag and outrun cars with much higher rated horsepower and larger displacement engines. The secret was that our family Buick had a manual transmission and no power assists to put a drag on the engine. The power was applied to the wheels. Back in those days there was a lot of slippage in the automatic transmissions. The same can be said about the test scores for students. It is how one’s ability to apply knowledge that is important rather than a score earrned on a test.
[quote="Marnet,
I highly approve of how some school districts now have life skill classes for all students at various ages. Learning practicalities such as budgeting, bill paying, resumes and cover letters, interviewing, basic car maintenance, etc. should be part of every school’s curicculum
I agree all school’s should have that the problem I have seen over the year’s is when the budget gets tight most everything but college prep get’s dropped, all student’s are not college material and would benefit from the industrial art’s class’.
So true. And not everyone’s brains are wired the same. In my case I had the dream of going into medicine or architectural engineering. But I simply could not master the math and sciences needed for either despite my interest. Nor can I draw or paint much better than balloon headed stick figures. But I did find I have a talent for writing; creative, business, and to some extent technical. So I worked hard to learn my craft, hone my skills, keep learning, keep improving.
I build training manuals. I create documentation. I communicate business information. And I craft language to paint pictures with words. But between how my brain works and my hands don’t very well I will never do my own car maintenance.
@Marnet. I share the same problem you have in working with my hands. I really admire people who work with their hands.
I think mathematics is probably the poorest taught subject in the curriculum from first grade through college. What seems to me that has happened is that the application of mathematics has been ignored. I was sent to a conference on statewide testing that was held in Michigan. One session I attended was presented by an attorney. He talked about the emphasis in mathematics should be to translate a English to mathematical symbols, manipulate the symbols and then translate the result back to English. When asked about how this could be accomplished, he responded “Have the students work word problems”. I agree. I don’t think one really knows mathematics if one can’t apply it.
I would enjoy taking courses in automobile repair. However, I am not sure I could apply what was taught to me in class to actually repairing my car.