Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) (My Journey)

Thank you for taking the time to read this, just know I will do my best to ensure spelling and other aspects of my post is clear and to the point. Though, I am not a spelling wiz nor am I a journalist. So bare with me because I may write something that was just messy.. All you need to do is let me know and I will rewrite it!

So allow me to give you some background on myself. My name is Mat, I'm currently 20 years old.. soon to be 21 before school ends. Typical story, when I was younger I always viewed trucks in a different way.. They were never just there to me.. Growing up I still had the same feeling as I did when I was younger. I decide to put myself through the training process to begin a new lifestyle and chapter in my book. You might think I'm young, and yes I am. But this is something I've felt very passionate about. I enrolled into a local community college (name will be listed below) for a good price. The school it self just built a new skills pad and my class will be the 3rd to be put on it. Now before I jump into a whole hodge podge of stuff, let me explain alittle about the course length and instructor(s) (I'm going to add more about the intructors as I meet them). Right now the course is a 8 week course. 2 weeks studying for permit, 2 weeks trip planning / map reading / etc, etc. Last 4 weeks is split into 8a-12:30pm Skills pad, 12:30p-4:30pm street driving. So 320 hours will be completed by the end of the class. Now lets begin the day by day, note that I'm not posting this in a daily fashion, I'm writing it in Notepad and when the week ends I'll update the thread. So there is less clutter for the other people to read through about.

Florida State College Cecil Center (Class size 14)

August 1st:
So to avoid any one not wanting their named on the thread, I'll nick name them. My instructor is Mr. J, just so you know.

Today was crazy, needless to say. Mr. J packed ALOT of initial information in on the first day, and by alot I mean alot. I was surprised by how much of what he was saying was truly related to alot of what I read here. Not that I am saying I didn't believe what people were saying, I was just shocked about how almost everything I've learned here he put out there and basically said Here is how it is, either you like it, or you don't. Now, I enjoy people being upfront but this made me respect him alittle bit more.

Now we covered alot of stuff like CDL qualifications, disqualification, how some states weight regs vary state to state, etc. Just alot. Hard to explain alot of what he said because I have so many notes it would fill up this whole thread. .. Anyways, to summarize today, it was a great day. I'll add more information as I go day by day.


August 2nd:
Today we studied Air Brakes all day. There is literally 1000000000 things covered in this book about air brakes, stopping, all that goodness. However, I feel as though I learned a good amount of it. Mr. J gave us a in-class test and I only got 2/25 wrong. The 2 I got wrong was because I misunderstood what the question was asking.

So far, pretty awesome day. Been meeting some great people in class.


August 3rd:
We covered coupling / uncoupling today and combination vehicles. Let me tell you that the CDL hand book has about 5 meanings for every 1 term they say so you have to watch the wording in each question asked because it really does mess you up. Mr. J gave us 2 test on the combination vehicles and I ended up with 1 wrong out of 50. So I think I got a good grasp on SOME of the knowledge, but will restudy it to.


August 4th:
Today we learned about Pre-trip inspections and starting the General knowledge section. He also gave us copy's of the Eaton Fuller gear shift points on the trucks they use. The pre-trip video was lacking the hands on experience (I know I know, how can a video actually give you that) but it also did alot of things kinda backwards. Meaning that the guy gets in and out of his truck to test stuff instead of doing the majority of the inside cab test while he is in there orignally. But if that is the system you have, hell it works for ya keep it. As for the General knowledge, the freaking pages are crammed full will information on it. To much to explain right now. Now the shifting instructions he kinda fed us was merely to get us familiar with how the trucks the school use are geared. Which was pretty cool.


August 5th:
Today Mr. J started out with more General Knowledge studying. He also gave us alot of insight on how he operated when he was working for Schneider National. He also has contacted a recruiter from Werner and Windy Hill to come in. Which should be pretty good to see, but I already have somewhat of a idea of who I might be going with. Of course it's only the first week so no need to get ahead of myself. However, the trucks are 2000 Internationals, and 1 1986/87 Peterbilt. The peterbilt was donated by Cypress transportation and I'll post a picture of it soon enough. I do know I haven't written ALOT about my schooling experience, it's mostly because I am summarizing about 90% of it up to make it not as long winded.

 

Figured I'd post this a tidbit early. Took my permit test today and another DOT physical for Roehl and passed both! Now I'm ready to learn how to drive a tractor and join the ranks.

 

August 8th:
Werner came in today to tell us what their company has to offer. Don't get me wrong, but that recruiter can sell it. Even with pretty demanding questions asked he knew how to flip them. Luckily I know what Werner truly offers.. School portion we learned about defensive driving and turns. The turns video pretty much described how many things can go wrong in left and right turns. Basically explaining the fundamentals about how turning is something that takes on a whole new meaning in every traffic situation. We are also being taught some of the smith system which is pretty interesting to say the least.


August 9th:
More general knowledge. Today was nothing but more of what yesterday was. Nothing new to say. (Of course not all the same information)


August 10th:
More general knowledge, and videos. The video portions was on hazmat, and various other things. We finished off all the general knowledge learning in the book and we take the permit test tomorrow. So I have independent study all day tomorrow just not at school! I plan on going to get my permit early in the morning and I'm going to stay up late tonight to study and cram more information into my brain. However, what I thought was funny is that Mr. J told us that we would retain the information even if we didn't realize it. I must say he is not lying. I was looking over some sample questions and the answers were just popping up left and right in my head. Hopefully that is a good sign, I just don't like how the questions are worded stupidly.. Though I suppose people who never even been in a tractor in their life wrote these test. Also on tomorrow agenda is a DOT physical for Roehl, after reading over other companies over and over I decided to just go with it. I've heard alot of great things about Roehl and hopefully they are true. I'm not going to get my hopes up but if it's true of what I hear then I will be more then happy of my selection.


August 11th:
Woke up early this morning to go to the Tax collectors office to do the permit test. Get their around 8AM and they open at 8:30am. When they opened they instantly told all of us that the computers are down and they don't know when they are coming up. So I figured I'd wait alittle bit to see if they would come back up anytime soon (Now the lady said it was state wide which is why I was waiting). After about a 1hr and 30 minutes she came back and told us it will be 4 hours before the technician comes to fix it. She then tells us the other offices have been up for awhile..... So I picked up my stuff and went down to Green Cove Spring to take the test. Ended up passing them no problem, though what I didn't understand is that I got alot of questions about buses. I double checked with the lady to ensure I got the right test which I did. After all that mess, I went to take my DOT Physical for Roehl, let me tell you that this physical versus my last physical was 100% different. The last physical all they did was check my eyes and my hearing. This place checked for color blindness, BMI, neck circumference, etc, etc. I passed all of it so that made me pretty darn happy.

All in all. This week has turned out to be pretty great! Onto tomorrow for a test / quiz filled day!


August 12th:
This school week is now over! Permit testing and studying done and over with finally. We are starting HoS / Log books Monday which I'm looking forward to since we are finally out of all that Florida handbook crud which is nothing but contradictions. Also got a 95% overall in the class which is pretty awesome. Very happy about it! Two more weeks and then we will get hands on experience with learning the trucks and I'm getting more and more impatient as the time grows near.

Now 3 people in our class did not get their permits. Two did not pass the test and 1 didn't have the required documentation which sucks for him because it really messes his grades up. I wish the best for all of them and hopefully will see them Monday.

 

Some pictures of the Peterbilt it's old but it runs #### good. Also some pictures of the skills pad / simulator.

Peterbilt:




And a funny accident with the hub seal. Instructor showed us how to not put the cap back on:



Simulator:

 

August 15th:
We got out on the skills pad today and the instructor split us into 3 groups of 4. He moved each truck into the locations allowing us to preform a in-cab pretrip including the brake checks. He went to each truck to show us how he performs it aswell saying that you can always do it in however order you want aslong as you feel comfortable with how you demonstrate it. Of course we had a in-cab check list of the 28 items that are required to examine in order to pass the road test portion. Anyways, so us 4 got in the truck and started working on it, the first guy got a few wrong, the second guy I helped out by calling out what he did wrong, my turn came of course I missed 2 - 4 things as the second guy was helping me, and the fourth guy was pretty good at it missing 1 thing. The instructor called break and told us that anytime we want we can get out of the truck to get in the shade to cool off. Now I didn't want to do that, I just wanted to work on this more and more. The second guy (Mr. B), and third guy (Mr. Cs) stayed in the truck while the first guy walked around doing nothing but trying to memorize his paper. Ok...

After that we go in the class room and watched a Distracted driver video that was pretty out there... Good job J.J Keller? After that we went on lunch and came back to start on HoS (Hours of Service) which I must say was confusing at first because the book just repeats 11 / 14 / 10 off. It's doesn't really define it. Mr. J did a great job of describing us how the logs work and how it is really important to keep a NCA (Neat, Complete, Accurate) Log book. He said that DOT will be more likely to look over log books that are sloppy / bad handwriting. That basically summarizes it up about log books. He gave us some pretty difficult homework, well not difficult just confusing.


August 16th:
We got out on the skills pad again and did more in-cab inspections. Mr. J tested us one by one on how we preform our In-cab inspection (28 items hes looking for explanations). I got it 100% but the only thing I did really verbalize is the service brake check by that I mean that I'm checking it for pulling to the left / right, grinding, smells, etc. After that we started learning how to read maps and trip planning. I must say these #### maps are a pain to read, I understand some of what Mr. J says but some of it is just hazy.

-- I had more added but my computer shut down on me and didn't save it which pissed me off.--


August 17th:
-- I had alot written down for here but my computer didn't save it and shut down.--


August 18th:
Today we learned more about trip planning and did a additional In-cab inspection. We had a sub today since Mr. J had to go to a meeting or what ever it was today. The sub is a 17 year OTR vet, and countless years training students. He talks about the down falls of trucking, about the difference between O/O and Independents. His business experience was pretty good to, he gave us plenty of examples about how O/O / Independents operate. Also he spoke with us on how much he hates Lease programs, how he warns students before they get their CDLs to CLEARLY read up on it if they want to lease. He said most company's who do leases won't answer your questions and shoo you away if you ask any about the amount of money they take out of your check on their lease program. Breaking it down to dollar figures gave us a reall good idea about what company's actually do to keep you on "their" truck and keep you doing work basically for free.

After that we went outside and did more In-cab. This time we didn't hook the trailers up, we did it bobtail. Which I must say the truck jumps more when there is no trailer holding it down, or maybe I was just releasing the clutch to quick because either way these things have ALOT more power then I expected. Though, I know trucks pull heavy loads requiring alot of power.. Maybe I'm now realizing how much power these engines actually have, and I'm just talking about bobtail / empty trailer. haha!


August 19th:
Once more we had a sub today since Mr. J was out, today we learned more about HoS, In-cab inspection, and trip planning. I've really been enjoying getting out on the skills pad because I feel great when I'm inside the truck and behind the wheel. After the skills pad we went to lunch and came back to do more trip planning which is fun.... yeah right! But I'm starting to grasp it abit easier each time we do a new scenario. During the class a man named Jim came into the class, he is the program manager. He wanted to stop by and tell us who he is, what he does, how the program started, how much everything cost to run it, how we get getting great education, etc, etc. Very funny guy I might add, he told us he dislikes the broken 130k simulator they had to buy since the college wants more technology. He said they have to spend 20k to upgrade it to fix most of the problems of the constant break downs and he said for the money he has spent on it they could of had 1 new truck or 3 used ones. He called it a overpriced video game and prefer real trucks because a video game you know its fake, but in a real truck you learn better because you have more pressure on you to understand it. After all his serious talk was over, he started telling us some jokes. Like, What do you call a Lot Lizard with a runny noise? Full. Or another one, What do you call a lot lizard with a mattress on her back? Owner Operator. Overall We have great people who teach here and want only the best for you from what I've took from it. None of them have a problem staying alittle after to give you 1on1 if you need it which I find pretty awesome. 3rd week down.

Also, I have a orientation set for Roehl on Oct 3rd, so if I pass I will be Roehl bound!

 

In-cab Inspection:


Sides of the FSCJ Trucks, 2000 International 9200i



3 of the 4 trucks. All the same model. (Excluding the Peterbilt)

 

August 22th:
Had a pretty great weekend, now that school is back in its time to get my week back on track. We started off with a video about Owner Operators from International which was pretty #### cool I must say. Though they did try and sell their Lonestar truck (of course) the video brought up pretty great points about how you will be away from family with no means to be there right away if something is to happen. After that we jumped into more HoS / Trip planning. Then reviewed about 90% of everything we learned. Mr. J told us we are going to start taking our final test for this class and that we need to study. Tomorrow is going to be the HoS and the DOT Book test (FMCSA book) which is open book. Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow, I don't expect to have any problems but who knows some times.


August 23rd:
Today we started out with our FMCSA (DOT) test which is open book. The test is also giving you the exact location in the book to find the answer. Example: 395.11(a)(1).. Needless to say I got 100% on that test. After that a recruiter from ComCar came in, which is a blanket company for CT, CTL, CCC, etc. She spoke with us about how their company's run Macks, no more then 3 year old equipment, how they don't pre-hire and only offer conditional employment after they verified EVERYTHING of yours, etc etc. Seem'd like a good deal. After her we went to lunch, which I stayed back and studied up on the HoS test.. Once we got back I took it and ended up missing 2 out of 50 giving me a 96% which sucks.. I expect more of myself so anything less than 100% bothers me.. Oh well, no big deal since a (A) is a (A). Looking forward to tomorrow!


August 24th:
Today we had 3 test. First was Monthly recap the second one was trip planning, and the last one was the Final. Which the final included everything about pre-trip and general knowledge. The recap is the only one I struggled with.. I know it's simple math but if you mess up one line well then you mess the rest up after that.. Word problems sucked to. I scored a 70. The other two I scored a 98 / 100. My grade avg was 93.3% which is ok. I expect more but what can I do? Even if I retake the recap and score 100% I would only avg out 85% on that test so 10 points. After that we had a DOT officer from FDOT(FHP) come in and talk to us. This lady was pretty funny, she told us basically they are out there because we are out there doing our job. She also told us they sit outside the port and wait for trucks to come out to check their weight. She said they catch alot of O/O overweight with no permit... Anyways, there is no school tomorrow and I go in on Friday at 10a for about a hour for truck assignment. Can't wait.


August 25th:
We had today off from school. Independent study


August 26th:
Went in at 10am this morning to school for the final remaining hours. We reviewed all of our test and if we had any questions we went over them. On my recap I messed up one word problem and put 3.25 instead of 2.75. Everything after I got wrong. Even though my math was correct with the 3.25.. Oh well, luckily I Aced all my other test and make up for it. After review we watched "Big Rig" on hulu with is a O/O documentary which I might say is depressing on somethings. After that movie we got a temporary assigned instructor.. I got Mr. J! But he said it can change because if people don't pay for the next class and they get dropped the computer will automatically reorganize the classes so it's tentative as of right now. Now all that book work is behind me, time to learn hands on!

 

How did you like it?