Well automotive service technology is a
program that we have here at Ferris that
brings somebody that who perhaps has no real, maybe background in automotive and
it brings them through all of the sub
functions of a automobile and it
prepares them for a career as automotive
technician. Automotive service technology
prepares the students to go into that
service end of the industry. Our program
is very focused on hands-on learning. We
want the students to experience the-the
different systems on the automobile from
a hands-on standpoint. We want them to be
involved with it. Take it apart. See how
it's put together. The diagnostics part
of it as well. I've always been
interested in cars and I knew that
Ferris would give me an opportunity to
learn about all the latest technology so
I came up here and I haven't looked back.
This program has a lot of history that
you know we bring forward and a lot of
the pride that we have and the work that
we do. We like to be involved with the
students and we do share in their
successes and we like a lot of students
come back and visit us again to tell us
about how things are going and that.
Students that graduate from the
automotive service program will have a
lot of varying skills. Some of the the
more common ones would be the the repair diagnosis skills that that we want the
students to learn in our lectures and
labs. My favorite part about the program
actually is the service floor. I really
like having a real-world problem come in
be able to use what I learned to
diagnose what the problem is and then
fix it and see the results. In the
automotive service technology program we
do our service floor. We have our service
floor here where the students are
actually repairing vehicles and so we
typically
to do at least one semester here on our
service floor. Their second service floor,
if they choose to, they can go out and do
that in industry. They could do it at a
repair facility, a dealership, independent
shop, fleet repair, or something like that.
We do just about anything. Rebuild
transmissions, brake work, anything that
you're gonna need to know to have a good
basis for your start as your career in
the field. We do anything you can think
of on a car. We'll take a transmission,
we'll strip it all down put it all back
together.
We'll pull engines and transmissions out
of cars. We'll do
valve gaskets, head gaskets, brakes, rotate tires. We do everything from the tiny
little things people do in their garage
to things that you have to go to a
specialty shop to do. We rip apart
everything, transmissions from part
suspensions. Basically we part
everything see how it works put back
together that way you know how to torque
bolts, everything that-all the little
special tools you need. How to
figure it out. It's kind of nice. The
classes are structured so that they
follow the eight general areas of the
automotive service excellence
certification. The teachers are real
hands-on. They are real concerned about
you know making sure you learn to-to get
a good foundation. Very open for extra
help if you need it. We do internships
where we actually place the students out
into the field to have a real life shop
experience and there also is an
alternative where we have an in-house
internship type experience but you know
with those two things going on there
that the student leaves here with a year
of experience as a technician that
qualifies them for you know one year on
automotive service excellence
certification. After these two
internships with General Motors I'm
going to start hopefully working with
them and it'll give me a job offer if I'm good.
We have a student now that's working
over at Crapo Ford in Mount Pleasant.
He was a graduate of ours and
he's been there for 32 years and hasn't,
has had a very successful career in
the Auto Service getting a two-year
degree. So we have many students that are out at dealerships, independent shops,
own their own shops. You know a
graduate ours I think of in the local
area: Quality Car and Truck, Donal Chesky
was a graduate of ours so we see some
very uh, very successful people in the
industry. The greatest thing about
Ferris's automotive program is once you
finish working on the cars the feeling
you get when something is completed and it's finished and you get to see it
drive out the door. If students are
interested in finding out more about our
program they can contact our department
directly. We can also set up tours for
students. If they want to apply they can
do that online through "ferris.edu".
Admissions will help them to complete
that and then of course they would need
to send their transcripts.
