Mission Hill Truck School: Modesto, CA

Since there are no reviews on this school, I'm going to post about my personal experiences with Mission Hill Truck School. It's not meant to be a good, or bad review. What I hope to present, is a clear and unbiased , realistic picture of what you can hope to find at Mission Hill Truck School.

First, their owner, Avtar Chatta, is a nice guy. The atmosphere is quite laid back, and oftentimes unstructured. There is no formal training procedure because this is not a corporate school.

My first week was spent in the classroom. They say you get 40 hours of classroom training, but realistically it's about 15 hours of training. You spend this time memorizing the CDL written test study guide, and taking practice tests.

Once you're ready to get your Class A permit, you'll take a physical, get your green card, go to DMV, and pass the 3 written tests to get your CLASS A PERMIT.

Your first week, of 4 weeks, of behind the wheel training, is spent learning how to back up, and if you're good enough, you'll learn how to Alley Dock the truck as well. But again, I repeat, there is no formal structure to this training program. It's more or less a free for all, with people backing up the truck on one side and doing alley docks on the other.

I basically taught myself how to back up, and alley dock, and got more help from my fellow students who were more experienced, than from the 'instructors.' Which brings me to my next point. The instructors seem to be there only to help you with pre-trip inspections, and COLA tests, and they'll show you how to do the DMV skills test a few times. The rest of the time, you are left by yourself to teach yourself and make sure you don't screw up.

The end result, is students teaching students, and instructors who sit back and make sure students aren't killing each other/themselves with the equipment.

Then I want to point out the lack of driving experience on the roads. I believe a school like Western Pacific Truck School, which offers a more structured, and more EXPENSIVE program, will have students driving on the roads every single day of 'behind the wheel training.' At MISSION HILL TRUCK SCHOOL, they have only 1 truck to take out on the road, so it is most always two students with one instructor in the truck. Furthermore, there are usually at least 10 or 12 students wanting to drive on any given day, and the end result is that you'll drive 50 percent of your 'behind the wheel' days at best, and the remaining days 'behind the wheel' are spent doing COLA tests with your fellow students, pre trip inspections with your fellow students, or practicing the DMV skills test (backing, alley dock, parallel, offset, etc) with your fellow students.

With that in mind, after going out on the roads about 5 times, you are almost good enough to pass the DMV road test. Having never driven a manual transmission in my life, I had to ##### at the instructors repeatedly to explain to me how the RPMS work with the up-shifting and down shifting (shift up @ 20 RPM, down at 15 RPM...) Once I got that , I was good to go. The first few times, were frustrating, and after that, I got it

Something peculiar about this school, is that there seem to be several immigrants living on site. Haha, god, I laugh to myself when I have to explain this, so picture like 15 men from Pakistan or Punjab province (India) living together, training together, and making a communal effort, if you will--all of them are from the east coast, and they come to Mission Hill Truck School to be trained in their native language. For us weary, post 9/11 types, this will resemble a terrorist training camp. But if you have an open mind, you'll see that these men eat, sleep, breathe, and #### CDL training. They can alley dock the truck as many times in a row, perfectly. And I learned a lot from them.

So let me break it down for you.
PROs
Flexible training schedule. No formal structure to the program. Perfect for working adults
Affordable tuition.
*Owner on site. This is not a corporate school.
*Their owner appears to have excellent hiring relationships with small, unknown companies that are usually Indian-Run.
*Excellent opportunity to deal with a diverse crowd of people.

CONS:
People living illegally ( ? ) on site.
No formal structure to the training program. Not good for people who want a structured program.
Not western pacific truck school. This school might not look as good on a resume.
You sometimes have to remind them to do their job. "Hey, can you uh, show me how to do the COLA TEST again... hey , when do I get to drive again?"

 

my advice is, if you have the money to go to western pacific truck school, do it. or find a friend with a truck to let you practice. they really don't teach you much here, but you get a certificate so that probably looks better on a resume...

 

haha thanks ....

 

Definately go to Western Pacific if you can. They teach you essentials to being a trucker. This school teaches you how to pass the CDL test. As we might know, there's more to being a truck driver than passing a CDL test... I didn't go with Western Pacific because they weren't willing to recognize some of my pre-hire letters, and I was getting WIA funding. Had western pacific told my funder alliance worknet that they wouldn't accept me, I'd have not got any CDL training...

FYI, Western Truck School (in turlock) and Western Pacific Truck School are virtually the same identical program.