NTI Springdale Arkansas

Last week I had my DOT physical and drug screen.

Day 1: Today, I started CDL school at NTI. Course is 5 weeks long 7am to 5pm. The instructors jumped right in with quizzes to determine how much we knew from the CDL manual, with a review after each quiz. From 1:30 to 2:30 the school librarian gave us a lecture on general study habits. By the end of the day we took our first graded test on General Knowledge. Then a review of what mistakes we made on it. My homework tonight is to review the first 4 chapters and reread the chapter on Air Brakes and the chapter on Combination Vehicles.

Read the manual before you go to class, because they don't have a lot of time to teach it.

 

Day 2-3
CDL written exam prep, and prep, with more prep, followed by a good round of prep. But it's worth it! We receive plenty of breaks and an hour for lunch.

Quiz's on paper and on computer. The instructors are great. So far we've had 2 drop from our course, not sure as to why.

 

Day 4

This morning we took graded tests on General Knowledge, Air Brakes and Combination Vehicles. After lunch we drove to the state police testing facility and tested for our CDL permits. (test was harder than I thought but I passed! HAAHA!)

After that, we took turns driving one of the tractor trailers in the yard, forward, then reverse, the length of the yard without turning, and staying between barrels.

 

Day 5:

Log Books, and in the truck learning to back up and do the "serpentine" hell maneuver.

 

Week 2 Day 3: 25 mile road trip to Huntsville, AR. More yard work. More log book homework and a logbook T/F pop quiz. Noon time visit by USA Trucking Recruiter.

 

End of week 3: Road trips everyday. More yard exercises and tests on hazmat, tankers, and logbooks. Willis Shaw recruiter visited us, gave us pens and business cards. He said that WS does not pay for Orientation and they have no match on their 401K. So they fell to the bottom of my list.

 

I forgot to mention in the first post that the tuition at the school is around $1650.00 which from what I've seen here on the boards is very reasonable.

 

Week 4 Day 1: Road trip pre-tests with focus on stop-n-go's and turning around or u-turn. Classroom instruction on Road Atlas. Last Friday we took our final tests on Logbooks and the 70 hour rules. This week we are turning in our daily logbook sheets for a grade.

Everyday starts with PTI, followed by first half of day OTR followed by yard work until 2 or 3 then classroom instruction until 4.

Covenenant is the scheduled recruiter for tomorrow. Tyson has agreed to come but they haven't scheduled a date yet, despite over half the class expressing interest in them. They must be full up with more experienced truckers.

 

Week 4 Day 2: Classroom instruction on adjusting your weight via the trailer axles and sliding 5th wheel. Logged 50 miles driving to Westville, OK. Covenant recruiter came today. More yard work, straight backing, stopping, serpentine, right turn, docking.