Anyone have any experience with technical schools like Wyotech, UTI, Lively or similar?

I've been going to UF (for about a year now) but have decided its not what I really want to be doing with my life and am very unhappy and bored with it. Its not that its too hard or anything, I can pass the classes and all no problem, I just want to be doing something I like rather than something I hate and am bored with.

Anyways, are these places total BS? I've read mixed reviews around the net. Some people say their a total waste of money and you learn very little while others say you will learn a lot and get very skilled if you show the initiative (basically saying you get what you put into it).

Anyways, this is just one of the various other options I'm looking into and I was hoping I could get some first hand knowledge from someone on one of these places or similar.

Thanks in advance,
-Will

 

 

you don't want to be a mechanic as a career, i graduated from a vo-tech for automotive technology, i love working on cars but being a service tech at a dealer you have to put up with a lot of customer bs, plus you come home everynight full of grease and grime,
i had to switch up

 

yes. mechanic life sucks.
wrenching on cars for fun is...fun.
wrenching on cars for a living is a kick in the balls almost everyday.

at home, you can work on your brakes for 4 hours taking a beer break every 30 mins.
at work you got the service writer nagging you if the job is done yet and it's only been an hour and the customer is waiting and constantly trying to walk out into the shop to look over your shoulder.

at home the lady stays in the house while you're in the garage changing fluids.
at work you gotta put away all your tools and lock your tool box even if you're just going to take a piss or else they'll grow legs and end up in another mechanic's box.

at home you use a $10 craftman 1/2 inch wrench for 5 years and it's still working fine.
at work that same wrench breaks on your after a week and your only other choice is $80 for a snap-on, $90 for mat-co, $70 for mac. next thing you know the wife is bitching about why you just spent $200 for 5 wrenches.

at home you wash your hands after rotating the tires and you're ready for dinner.
after work you gotta take off the work boots and leave them outside because they stink, then you gotta tip toe through the house cause anything you touch becomes stained with a black fingerprint, then you gotta scrub down in the shower because fuel doesn't wash off very easily, then at the dinner table everyone is calling you dirty because under your nails are black stains from oil and grease and dirt.

 

i still owe the matco man a few dollars, don't forget a customer(woman)
comes in with a squeak or rattle, and you drive the car all goddamn day trying to figure out what it is(mean while you know a squeak and rattle only pays 1 hour until you find the problem, and you don't hear anything, so you do your paperwork and hand her the keys, and 5 minutes later she comes back complaining about the same thing

 

No offense guys, but I realize its hard, dirty work. That's not what I'm asking about.

I'm looking for info on the schooling. Specifically Wyotech/UTI/Lively, how good they are, and if they're worth it etc.

 

i have 3 friends and a cousin who have went to wyotech. the friends all went for auto collision repair and my cousin went for diesel mechanic. its fairly expensive but all 4 said it was worth it. 2 of them work in body shops and are saving money, hoping to one day open their own shop. one owns his own successful body shop. and my cousin is a diesel mechanic working with union pacific doing very well for himself.

 

yes, you get what you put into it.
when i was in school (LTI) there were those who treated it like it was high school (being lazy, ditching class, cheating) and there were those who understood that this training has a direct effect after graduation.
i was in the latter group.
the school is only gonna teach you the overall basics of automotive work.
don't expect to learn how to rebuild a trans from a BMW 7 series. instead they will teach you how some of the more common automatic transmissions work.

it is very much "you get what you put into it". and with automotive technology advancing at a good rate, expect to be about 3 years behind on the latest stuff when you finish.

but all this changes when you get into a manufacture sponsored program.

 

I have a cousin who went to Wyotech, he learned a lot from it.

If you're good at other things, Wyotech could even be good if you're only doing wrenching for yourself/friends/family, if you can afford it. If nothing else, it'll be a helluva learning experience.

 

My brother went to UTI, he worked hard and got into the Mercedes Benz program and got a job working at a dealership. Meanwhile his friend didn't work as hard, didn't get into a program and ended up getting a job not having anything to do with cars.

Technical schools are expensive. My brother ended up quitting the job because of the bs he had to put up with the service managers giving the problematic cars that no one else knew how to fix.