Considering Going To College

[ste91]

Want people's thoughts on this, I'm considering going to college to do vehicle body repair & paint.

Since I left school I have been wanting to do machine driving (360 degree excavators, or in plain english - driving diggers ).

But the course for that costs a stupid amount and I've tried getting funding for it but it's no good, so I thought forget that, and maybe do something with cars instead.

Now I don't want to do "mechanics" as I feel I'd be wasting time as I have taught myself the basics, and from what I've seen most mainstream mechanic jobs just involve doing servicing and silly annoying jobs on cars which doesn't interest me at all.

So I'm looking into body repair & painting, does anyone here do it? I'm not really sure wether I want to go back to college (I did a two year course in my last two years of school on Engineering and by the time the course finished I was bored shitless of it and haven't bothered with engineering since then).

Basically what I want to know is if anyone has done a course on bodywork/spraying, what they thought of it, what's it like trying to get a job afterwards, etc...

[Glanza-Love]

^ Mechanic jobs aint boring mate. extreme laughs with it. youll see what damage people have done to there cars and stuff.. plus maintain your own car... make money off homers...

think about the money... thats what you wna eyeball.

[ryan lang]

i just applied for a college course in vehicle fitting after being made redundant hopefully it comes through quickly tho

[riko666]

Try searching for an Apprenticeship in the field you're searching for - gives you more real world and practical application of education, rather than sifting through books and theoretical work

[ryan lang]

ive applied for some but they dont start til september and the course ive applied for now starts every 2 weeks so hopefully they'll get back to me soon

[Jozinobi]

You're still young and under 20 ste mate.

Now is a good time to start something from the ground up.

Joz

[Ryan5793]

i do it ;) and i love it! coming to the end of my 1st year now and I've got an apprenticeship ready for me in 2 weeks time. Going back to college next year for a week every 6 weeks. learnt quite allot and spraying comes with practice, some of my early work is shocking

[BAZ2CRAZY]

Colleges are unorganised. You wont learn exactly what you want to learn... From my experience any way.

I did a motorcycle mechanics course and it was a complete joke. Im half way through a mechanical btec and electrical nvq. Still major jokes. But im hard to please and will pick faults with anything.

If you can... get an apprenticeship. But get one with a large/stable company. No end of my friends keep getting laid off.

Mitch

[bucketep91]

i did a bodywork course a few years ago. it was shit tbh, full of little pricks who had been thrown out of school! the workshop was a joke! the 15 year olds drivin cars about crashing into things and ruining other peoples work and fighting! absolute joke! oh and apparantley im a qualified painter! didnt even do much painting!

[Steve GT]

do it while youre young mate. but an apprenticeships deffo the way forward. earning while learnings the best way matey

[BoostJunkie]

best thing is to ask....... Has any one thats done a mechanic/bodyshop college course walked straight into a job ??

that would be my cue to jump in here i'm a level 3 nvq mechanic done it in college and no no chance of walking into a job, done my first 2 years in one college had to do my 3rd year in another college as my lecturers in my first 2 years said it was a waste of time as the only way is apprenticeship and due to my age i was never gonna get an apprenticeship so the only thing i could do was go further and i'm at uni just finished my 1st year doing an honours degree in motorsport engineering.

[Scott-EP]

I agree with Mechanics mate, Got about 2months to go until im fully qualified from college and it is a boring job, every now and then you will get something abit exciting to do but it is generally just Servicing and doing little repairs!! But it is a good trade to get into as it's a good job to Fall back on as everyone needs a mechanic!

Body Repair i can imagine to be good though i did want to do it originally before i got into mechanics but there was no colleges around my Area at the time that did that Course