Just put in my application.

I was just informed by by someone at swift, who isn't my recruiter, that I need to get a DOT physical before attending the academy on Monday. The closest clinic is about 30 miles from me and the physical will cost $115 which won't be reimbursed. Also, this person said I will be taking the permit test on Monday, which means I'll need to study hard in the 4 days I have left. Can anyone comment on this? The physical thing really threw me off, because from what I have read on the forums, and what my recruiter told me, the physical is done out there and I don't pay out of pocket for it.

 

Ended up not having to pay for the physical. Showed up at the clinic and the staff there tried to contact Swift to get an authorization. They weren't able to get a hold of anyone who knew what was going on. So I called my recruiter and he had the authorization faxed over in 2 minutes.

 

I got to the hotel in Phoenix at about 2pm. One roommate so far, he's been here for 6 weeks due to some paperwork issues at first, and recent road evaluation issues. He gave me some good advice.

 

Day one went well, passed my permit test. The class is large, 20+ people, and I believe only 5 others passed the test. I would highly recommend you guys take practice tests here at the report, and at trucker country. The questions were extremely similar, and a lot of the people that had trouble with the permit test today were only studying out of the manual (which I barely touched).

 

Passed straight backing. Class of 29 is now down to 15. It is unbelievably hot out there on the range. Having a good time so far though.

 

Passed my skills evaluation, which consisted of straight line backing. offset backing, and parallel parking. Received 4 infraction points out of 12 allowed. The entire class passed, which was unusual for a class as large as ours. So far I am very happy with the Swift academy, I am getting a lot of seat time, I've been in a truck all day every day for the last week and a half save for 2 class days. I am comfortable with the truck, I upshift and downshift well, and enjoy backing. Looking forward to driving on actual roads tomorrow.