Thread: UNOH high performance school, any input?

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i know most peoples exp's with UTI or WYOTECH have been less then desireable, but ive been looking into UNOH the univeristy of northwestern ohio's, high performance motorsports class, and their alternative fuels course. has anybody had any expieriences with this, or know anybody who went their, their thoughts good or bad?

heres the links, http://www.unoh.edu/academics/colleg...chnology.shtml

http://www.unoh.edu/academics/colleg...lt_fuels.shtml

As you've mentioned, a lot has been said about some of the other schools, and generally the problem with most of these types of programs/schools is that they sell the students on the belief that the day they graduate employers will be knocking down their doors to hire them. The sad fact is, most employers want employees who have some actual work experience, the more the better.

When I was in the marine business lots of young graduates from one of the many marine mechanics schools would show up at our door, looking for a job, and were not happy to find out we usually would not hire someone just out of school because we could not afford the luxury of hiring someone who was not ready to hit the ground running. The day they graduated they had some basic knowledge, but it takes years to become a truly good tech. The schools were selling these guys a dream, and it rarely panned out.

Not saying that is the case with the one you are questioning, just my experience.

Don

I was accepted into the High Performance Motorsports program, and I did enroll in it... the facility itself is inpressive. there is a chassis dyno and an engine dyno, drag pad out back ( 660' IIRC ).. metal fabrications shop is amazing as is the engine shop... however the course will get you nowhere.. you end up with a diploma. if you take the collage course, you get a basic associates degree in math and science. and altho they make it seem like they will get you a job gaurenteed. they won't.

For $40k I pulled out once I figured out it would most likely be a waste

i was going to focus on the alt fuels course and take the high perf motorsports class.

gotta get going in school soonoer or later. cant sit by. there are no more show up at a shop and sweep floors and move up deals, the economy just aint having it, if oyu dont have a degree in something its impossible, at least out here. and assoc is better then HS, IMO

You are right, a degree is terrific to have and a great starting point. I just don't like the hype schools sometimes feed their students that they will be fully qualified to jump right into the workforce. It would be interesting to see what the actual success rate is of these schools getting their graduates placed into a true technical position right out of the gate. I bet the vast majority of their students still end up with an entry level position until they gain more experience.

It's the old catch 22. How do you get experience if no one will hire you, and yet companies won't hire you until you have some experience.

But yes, a degree is great to have as part of your resume.

Don

You guys keep putting out the soap box, I'll keep stepping up on it.

Having been an employer of technicians in auto repair I may have a different view than most. Granted my last experience is almost 10 years back (holy cow, THAT long?), but the basics remain the same. As we see very often (ref. the Barry Grant thread) it's not a simple thing to keep the doors open on a business. The owner/manager/operator has to juggle many priorities to accomplish that. Like anything else, views depend on which mountain top you're standing on. To some getting customers in the door is "the most important thing". To others it's controlling costs. Others, it's dealing with all the vast myriad of political interference. Still others it's the support, or lack there of, of suppliers. And then there's having good, productive employees who don't turn your business into an adult daycare center. In reality, it's all of those things and more.

Of the three tech schools mentioned I've only come in contact with a couple people who graduated from Wyotech. Both were sharp young men who had developed some good skills considering their age and experience, and perhaps even more important, they had a good perspective on work ethic. I don't know if the Wyo program teaches that or if they picked that up elsewhere, but for them it was good that they did.

I sat on a board of advisors for a local community college program in autobody repair arranged through our industry trade group. One of the problems I had with the program was that the students weren't given a sense of value. A business can only pay based on value added to a production process if it wants to survive. Governments and huge businesses (one local example would be Boeing, which had an uncomplimentary nick name "The Lazy B Ranch") can afford to carry deadwood employees either because no one holds them responsible for being fiscally responsible/productive, or they're in a semi monopoly and can pad their pricing to compensate for inefficiencies. Small businesses like auto repair can't do that. Each employee has to carry his/her share of the load. If one falters, there usually aren't enough others to fully compensate. You can get by for a short while, but eventually the system suffers from overload.

When we had young lads move out of the classroom and into an apprentice position, their biggest complaint was they weren't paid enough. From the business point of view, they were overpaid for their contribution to productivity. Again, a balance needed to be found. The lead instructor at this particular institution was a blivit as far as I was concerned. As I later found out, one of the reasons he was an instructor is that he had such a bad reputation as a troublesome employee he found it hard to get a job in a shop. His bodywork skills were decent enough, but he had no concept of teaching good attitude to the impressionable.

Of course in the front office, we need to maintain a good team of workers to do what we do. Not only do they have to have the skills necessary, they need to "play well with others". Some folks can, some can't. And then there's "chemistry". Personalities matter, and how they're managed matters. Now there is another Voc/Tech program in our area that turned out some fine talent, and I had to compete for grads from that operation as some of the other shop owners recognized that as well. (you might ask, why didn't our trade group program go there. That was what I lobbied for, but that's another long story) Why were their student more in demand? Likely it was a combination of things. For one they taught to a higher level. They not only emphasized the physical skill factors, but also employee relations from the employee side. Perhaps, because of their higher level reputation, their student applicants were somewhat self selective, i.e. the "better" kids chose that school, I'm not sure.

As an employer I needed to recruit the best possible young talent I could to have in line to replace the older or less productive talent that was leaving the employee market. The interview process was critical. It's not enough to be a good, in our case, bodyman, you also need to be a (trite term but true) good team player. Or, at least, at a good shop you do. I needed a fast learner without a chip on his shoulder to minimize the period where he cost me more than he produced (which included his impact on reducing the productivity of the others in the operation who relied on him completing his portion of the repair process in a timely and quality manner).

Scoot, education is critical to your being able to maximize whatever success you'll have in life. But education isn't a piece of paper. As Pops mentioned, similar to a discussion we had on another thread the other day, young folks are sold a bill of goods when told something along the lines "get that diploma and you've got it made". Whatever they can teach you in school is just foundational information/skill developement for future learning. If you can grasp that concept it will serve you well. No matter how smart somebody is, they can always learn more...........and improve their value to their fellow man. When you genuinely improve your value, the market will reward you. It's the posers that will always be the grumblers because they have the misbelief that they should be paid for just being there, with no understanding of producing value to others.

When I say education I don't necessarily mean a school, nor am I saying schools don't educate. Some do, some don't, and in between there are varying levels of do. But then you and the attitude you bring with you are too. Employers, good ones anyway, are aware of the need to continue to upgrade their workforce. But because of the difficulties in running a business today they need productive employees. I won't go off on the riff again except to say that government imposed "regulations" on employment (and not really talking about minimum wage requirements, though that's one example) have elevated the REAL cost of an employee way above what most people can realize. In some states it's not uncommon for an employee who sees his wage rate as $40k per year actually costing the business somewhere around $70k per year. THAT is the real issue underlying why certain kinds of jobs "disappear", but the political class and their enablers don't want anyone to recognize that. The young person has the challenge of choosing a career paith that will best work around those obstructions.

We have tens of millions of vehicles in this country. They are one of the foundational stones of freedom. Freedom of movement is a powerful thing that we take for granted. Those vehicles will need repair, many times sophisticated repair skills. Some folks can learn outside of a formal school, others benefit from the structure of a classroom/tech shop environment. You need to correctly assess where you fit in that. There are employers who will value you if you bring the right combination of skills/attitudes/and work ethic to the job. It ain't easy, but it's worth it.

Ford used to have a good program down here and I tried to get my lazy son to enroll in it but that didn't work. But never the less it was a good program.
It was called the Ford excelerator program and you would go to school a couple weeks the go to a dealer ship and work a couple weeks and that would alternate back and forth for about three years. When you were done at the end of the course you could be making as much as $45 bucks an hour. They have since discontinued the course, I wish my son would have gone and done it.
Kurt

Originally Posted by gassersrule_196

i was going to focus on the alt fuels course and take the high perf motorsports class.

gotta get going in school soonoer or later. cant sit by. there are no more show up at a shop and sweep floors and move up deals, the economy just aint having it, if oyu dont have a degree in something its impossible, at least out here. and assoc is better then HS, IMO

IIRC. Alt fuels is an optional part of the automotive program. High performance motorsports is within it's own complex and course.. theres probably a way to put them togther but, it will most likely cost a bit.

go to a community collage and get a assoc degree, and take an automotive course.. you will be out less than $20k but you will end up with the same accreditation

$0.02 - Gasser, always remember that knowledge and education is NEVER wasted - - - - keep asking around and listening to those that have experience on both sides and you'll be able to weigh all the data and make an educated decision. Good Luck to you and Kudos for wanting to further your education and ability.

I have seen grads of UTI come to our shop and frankly, I don't believe that they gained enough knowledge/experience to work at Jiffy-libe----when they have to stand and look at a bolt/fitting and spin there finger around in clock/counterclock wise to fiqure which way to turn a bolt to loosen/tighten-----

And they have $55,000 student loans to repay----

It takes me about 3 times as long to show someone how to do something than do it myself--and they don't get what simple fractions, etc are---when a guy looking for a 9/16 wrench picks up an 1 1/8 and turns it over to read the size has a problem--

ANd don't be dancing around to the sounds of the music playing----

Scooter---go to CC and not only do auto classes but the machine shop classes as well, welding and while there check out the truck driving ----

our local community college has no cdel course, no machining course, very limited welding courses and a shit auto program. this is why i am looking elsewhere.

i am not talking about uti or wyotech imo those are not worth it.

i am not going to school to be a dealerhsip mechanic. i am going for high perf cars. and the alternative fuels deal caught my eye as a sort of back up plan.

unoh from what i can see in the pricing is nomore expensive then local schools 1400 a sessions 6 sessions a year bout the same price.

ive done some net research and havent been able to find anything bad ont he ohio school but tons and tons of bad info about the uti and wyotech deal.

i am also looking at their diesel program i ahve some options i just need to sort them out.


another reason for moving out of this shithole town is to find work. there is nothing here. its like a mini detroit minus the crime.

Just a thought, Scooter.... Are there any decent shops running an internship program anymore????

As Uncle Bob mentioned, the wages you have to pay a new employee are not even half of what it actually represents to the shop as an expense.... IMO, knowing the business and people side is just as important as knowing the wrench turning side of working in a performance shop..

well you could come up hear and i show you how. what. and why.if i could do it all over i would of gone to school to be a chef

Originally Posted by pat mccarthy

well you could come up hear and i show you how. what. and why.if i could do it all over i would of gone to school to be a chef

Come on Pat, you're like many of us......you wouldn't do it all any different even if you could!!!!! Well, maybe with the exception of your recent fire!!!!

Scooter, you should check into Bates Votech in Tacoma. I used to guest lecture there a couple decades ago to the diesel classes, at the time they appeared to have a pretty comprehensive program and dedicated instructors. Since it was so long ago there's no guarantee there is the same level of cinnutnent there, but at least it's worth a look.