I attended UTI. I thought it was a waste of money.

Bear in mind that I had a very good high school shop teacher, and by my senior year, was taking 4 periods a day of auto shop (and actually attending most of them). The thing is, there are guys there who have a few years experience (some with many years) whose employers decided to send them, get them something on paper and then have them serve as trainers or such, and then there are kids recruited from far of lands who, while they have seen cars before, have never driven or even thought about working on one. For those kids the school might really be a good thing, but for someone who has already gotten a lot of education or work experience, it's largely a waste of time. It's very hard to teach these two groups at the same time.

Another thing that seemed particularly useless to me, was the amount of time spent on how things are manufactured, that has nothing to do with diagnoses or repair. Some of it is interesting, but in my years of work as an automotive tech, not once have I needed, nor been had the chance to explain to a customer,that the problem with their wheels results from a higher than normal zinc content, or that the plies in their tires are crossing at the wrong angle. Even if the customer cared, there's nothing you can do about a tire that's coming apart internally, the only option is to replace it. Your time is far better spent on matters other than expalining to someone the differences between bias-ply and radial tire construction. Unless you're building cars from scratch, it doesn't matter what the ratio between the size of the master cylinder bore to the size of the caliper piston is, you're going to put on the master cylinder the car calls for, and replace calipers with the same.

If you should choose to go, decide in advance (sounds like you might have) what you want to do. I took full auto and diesel, so there was a lot of repetition. I did learn a bit in the diesel portion, but nothing that I couldn't have learned in a good shop, working and making money rather than going to school and spending it. Now my diesel knowledge is going to waste, as it's rare that one comes into the shop.

Also worth considering is who you'll be going to school with. Take a campus tour and spend some time outside with students during lunch/dinner breaks. Let's just say it's not an intellectual experience. Mostly it revolves around muscle cars, import tuning (both with all the latest bolt on horsepower, while attending a school that teaches just how false those claims are), and pot. And hootchie poonani. Can't forget that.

When you get out of school, expect no one to care that you were in school. No one cares about your attendence record. Or your grades. Everyone wants experience. In my experience, no one cares about ASE certification either. The ones you'd want to care, know it's a crock, and the ones who are impressed, are the ones who think a patch on your arm is a testament to your skill as mechanic, just like a Home Depot sticker on a racecar is a testament to the quality of their lumber.

What you get out of the deal is a chance to live away from home for a few years, eating Ramen and struggling to pay bills. A valuable experience, which I recommend wholeheartedly, but not something that has to cost so much. You can do this by attending a community college several towns away. You get several years of student loan payments. You also get a piece of paper you can use to tell others of your (supposed) knowledge and skill. And if you need a piece of paper to do that, you're already in more trouble than school can help with.

That should about cover it. Feel free to ask questions if there's something else you'd like to know.

MV

P.S. If you do choose to go, let me know in advance, I'll tell you my name and you can say I referred you, that way I'll get $50.