My adventures with Western Pacific Truck School Modesto CA

So here is my story....

After researching the trucking industry for over a year I've decided to make the jump and start a new career. Rather than take out a loan or get company sponsored training an be obligated to work for a company I may not like for a year or more I went to my local EDD/Alliance Worknet office and looked into getting a WIA grant to pay for school. The process wasn't easy and it's taken about 4 months from start to finish to get through it all but after attending an orientation, taking several tests, turning in tons of paperwork, and having countless meetings with several different caseworkers I am finally at the end and just waiting for my caseworker to call and tell me if I'm going to get the funding or not(according to her it should be a yes but her supervisor still has to look over my case and give the final yay or nay).

I'm hoping to attend Western Pacific Truck School in Modesto, CA starting Jan 27. After checking out the schools in my area I decided that WePac was going to be the one for me. Becky, the admissions rep supervisor, has been very nice, informative, and VERY helpful through the application process. The school is 7 weeks long. 1 week(8 hours a day) in the classroom preparing you to take the DMV permit test then 6 weeks(4 hours a day) range/road time.

After I successfully finish school and get my Class A I plan to go with Watkins & Shepard. I've already filled out an application for them & spoken to Sandy in recruiting. She said that as soon as I start school to get ahold of her so I can get scheduled for orientation, WOOHOO!! lol I'll hopefully be headed to orientation near the mid to the end of March sometime.

I honestly can't wait to get started. I'm more than a little nervous but REALLY excited at the same time. I know I'm not going to be make millions of dollars or anything and that trucking is a way of life not just a job. I've gotten tons of useful information from this and other forums as well as talked to people already in the industry so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

This thread is mainly going to be for day to day updates on my experience with Western Pacific Truck School here in Modesto. Once I am headed out to orientation for W&S I'll start a new thread for that.

Now if you're still reading this, sorry for being so long winded lol. Thanks for reading & check back here soon for more updates on my adventures with Western Pacific!

 

THANKS Lady K! and good luck to you too! What company are you going with?

 

COOL! I had looked into them too. My first choice was to try and go through WIA to get school paid for then if that didn't work out Central Ref is next on the list.

 

Well it wasn't exactly easy to get and I'm still not 100% sure I'll get the money yet. I'll find out next week if I'm going to get it or not. If that doesn't work out I'll probably be calling Central or maybe Swift but I don't think swift will provide company training for someone from my area.

 

Yeah TDA also has a school here in Modesto, I looked into them last year sometime. I actually filled out the central app & was accepted into their training program through TDA and was going to go the central route but decided to hold off until I figured out how the WIA thing worked. If I don't get funding through WIA then I'll probably be calling central & going to TDA.