Advice and Perspective

Many good trucking jobs in Virginia for new cdl school grads.
Which town/city are you near?
Some will reimburse cdl school tuition back to you in monthly installments.

 

All schools train to a common federal standard of minimum competency to get a CDL A that is your graduation cert.

You pay cash yourself and get it free. Oll Your'un when finished.

You are near I-81 more or less or I-95. companies lived and died for generations on those roads.

Ditch the word Career, Trucking is the least stable occupation you will ever attempt. Break a mirror get fired. /satire... with half truth.

You just have to drive up to 11 hours before stopping 30 minutes somewhere in there and then stop and park.

Musical chairs day and night. Have at it. One big Parking-a-Rama we are in these United States of Parking.

If you have spouse who has a CDLA then that is good for team. Marrieds are valuable Anyone else is a crap shoot.

DO NOT fill your head with the trappings of Williamsburg and quality living. You will be exposed to some really bad human failings in this industry.

@Chinatown will help fix you up for work.

Build a thousand dollar cash and a thousand dollar secured VIsa reserve. This is your Alamo when if you are stranded, fired, kicked out, jailed etc 2000 miles from home all by your lonesome. It's possible

Wait until you examine your fine class and discover all of them cannot pool 30 dollars.

Im not raining on your parade. You are about to get involved in something bigger than yourself and you have a go at it. Just be sure not to get all those ideas of a first class trip, you be riding the back of the smoky Greyhound first and learn to like it with 50 of your best family.

 

CDL school is just to pass the state test and get your CDL. Which CDL school you go to is less important than what color truck your drive. The color of your truck is not important. The most important thing to enter this industry is Picking a company to work for. It takes some time to sort out which company will be a good match for you and your situation.
DO NOT START SCHOOL UNTIL YOU HAVE PICKED A COMPANY TO WORK FOR.

Picking a CDL school is NOT like picking which Ivy League university to attend, which is choosing which network of graduates you will be relying on to progress in your career. CDL school is to get a license. You will ride and be trained by your first company. That is where you learn 95% of this job. CDL schools cannot possibly know how every customer or trucking company does things. Even if the CDL school wanted to be comprehensive they don't have time or the info.

Once you have selected your truckign company to work for, then pick a school. Some trucking companies (both good and bad companies) have their own schools. There is no sense paying for CDL school if you want to work at a company with it's own school. Half of trucking companies offer Tuition Reimbursement. Once hired they will pay you a fixed amount toward paying for CDL school, in addition to wages you earn driving.

You need to seriously decide what kind of trucking you want to do (OTR, local, regional, flatbed, tanker, dry van, reefer, etc). Then you need to pick what companies are near you. The more often you want to get home the more important it is to work for a company with facilities near you. Once you have selected type of company, amount of home time, then carefully select which companies to interview. Web pages and phone calls or online chats with recruiters is NOT enough info. The most reliable info will come from drivers doing the work you want to do at the company where you want to work. Make the company put those drivers in contact with you. NEVER work at a company without speaking to drivers already working there. Companies and recruiters will claim every driver at every company is AVERAGING 2,500 miles per week. It's a lie. Some drivers average much more and rookies that make mistakes will average much less. Drivers working for the company will give you the real info.

 

Late 80's school for $2500 uncle sam in Baltimore Desiel Insitute (Closed decades ago) off Haven Street.

Run most everything except Radioactive, Explosives A and no doubles, triples. Or buses.

I specialize in High Dollar Medicines until after 9-11 was finished. end of that year in 2001.

Currently medical patient fixing blindness, joint replacements and other surgeries pending until everything is repaired in about a year I go back out hauling medicines I have a standing job with that employer. And another in Maryland for dump truck work which is really relaxing.

 

I've done flatbed, reefers, dry van, tankers. All long haul because that's what I prefer.
You should attend school in VA because schools in VA will qualify you for about any trucking company that hires new cdl school grads. Some companies have specific schools in VA they hire from and you can ask any company you're interested in about that.
Get all the endorsements because they're like money in the bank. You must get the hazmat endorsement in VA because if you get it in another state, you'll still have to get it again in VA because that's your domicile.