Newbie Journal with SAGE School

Day 23 - Last chance to drive on the road before the DOT test on Thursday. I did okay, but my downshifting was terrible. Thankfully, we're not being graded on downshifting, but I'd still like to be a little more proficient at it. We did 2 laps through the town of Yadkinville and I didn't hop any curbs, hit any cars or pedestrians, roll back after a stop or cross any lines that I shouldn't have in my turns. I think I'll do okay on the actual test.

I called Cooke Trucking in Mt. Airy this afternoon regarding part-time positions. Basically, after I complete 90 days of full-time training I can work 1 week on\1 week off if that's what I want to do. Same pay as the other drivers but no benefits. Not sure if I'll do this or not, but it would be nice to have it as an option. If my girls have a difficult time with my being gone for a week at a time during the training, I can fall back on continuing doing it part-time instead of just throwing in the towel.

 

I PASSED! My downshifting was downright ugly, but like I said before you aren't scored on downshifting. No popped curbs, no injured pedestrians, no damaged vehicles, no speeding, no rollbacks and no crossing median lines. Friday morning I head to my local DMV office to give them the sealed envelope with my road test results and upgrade my CDL. At Noon, I head back to the community college to pick up my course completion certificate and enjoy some free pizza. I'll post my closing comments regarding SAGE once I have that certificate in hand.

 

Okay, I've received my course completion certificate from Surry Community College so I'll now give you my review of SAGE. Overall, I can recommend the school but there's room for improvement.

Every student in my class confirmed that nothing was ever told to them that we would be driving after classroom hours including weekends. The course was advertised as being from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Program Director does pass out blank calendars so you can indicate days\times that you definitely can't drive and they will honor those requests. However, make sure you have some weekday evenings open to drive from 5:30-9:30 p.m. and on weekends between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Sessions are limited to 4 hours.

A course syllabus should be handed out on Day 1 of class and not Day 5. I understand that it's nice to have both the driving schedules and text assignments on the same handout to cut back on paper, and it takes a few days to juggle students' schedules to make up a driving schedule, but for me I'm not willing to wait to save a tree. Give me the syllabus now and the driving schedule later.

All students should have their CDL Learner Permit in hand on Day 1. We spent 2 full days reviewing the required chapters in the CDL manual from the DMV office to pass the tests for the CDL Learner Permit. Three of us already had our permits, so it was a total waste of time for us. Get the FREE manual yourself from the local DMV office or download it to your PC, read the chapters on "General Knowledge", "Air Brakes" and "Combination Vehicles" and you're good to go. There are some websites that offer free practice tests that were mentioned earlier in this thread. I paid for a subscription to TestAnswers.com and got different test questions each time I started a new test.

There is no formal maintenance program in place for their trucks. The way things get fixed is to make sure your complaint reaches the office of the Program Director and she'll come down and check it herself. These trucks are sufficient for students to learn on, but when you take the trucks on the road with your school name all over the tractor and trailer wouldn't you want them to look good. I'm not talking about pimping them out, I mean fix the door seals, rusty wheel rims, cracked or missing reflectors, major dents, etc.

On-the-road instructional time needs to be increased. When I asked an instructor about this I was told that the time spent on the range vs the road depends on the student's needs. If they're comfortable on the road, but their backing is crap then obviously they need to spend more time on the range. Based on that response, wouldn't it seem more logical to give the instructors some leeway to adjust the range/road ratio for each student based on their firsthand observations instead of SAGE giving everyone the same ratio? Just a thought.

This next item is probably petty, but I think SAGE could put together better quality instructional movies. As I reported earlier, the instructional movies we were shown went as far back as 1990 when they were first produced on VHS tape. They were then transferred to DVD but with a significant loss in quality.

On the topic of Recruiters, SAGE is not affiliated with any carrier so they let recruiters come in from a variety of national and local companies. We had a total of 6 visit us during our 3 weeks (3 national and 3 local), and they came in on different days/times. I think it would make sense to designate a half-day either before or after the lunch break to line up all the recruiters. Schedule that day to be early in the second week so students can get applications filled out and maybe have some pre-hires in hand by the time they have their CDL. If there are any recruiters following this thread, you can increase your presentation "WOW" factor significantly if you bobtail to our school in a truck that represents the equipment you assign to your drivers. At least Werner brought pictures.

Again, I DO recommend SAGE in Yadkinville, NC. It's not perfect but the instructors were fantastic and were constantly checking to see if there was anything we needed help with or wanted to review some more. They did their job and our entire class passed the DOT road test and got their CDL license by graduation day. The office staff know the various carriers well and will work hard to get your application noticed. If you press them, they'll give you the scoops on the carrier. Tuition alone was $3,710, and there may have been other area community colleges that were cheaper but I don't think I would have received the one-on-one instructor time that I did. I also get lifetime placement assistance if I need it.

With that, I'll end this thread. Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and feedback. Once I get on the road, I'll start a new thread to tell you about that experience.