Frame of Mind: Class is in Session…So is Your Reputation
What Collision Students Need to Know Before Their First Day, First Week and First Tool-truck Temptation
By Jannifer Stimmel-Watkins, Technical Editor
Glossed & Gritty’s Technical Editor draws on her years of experience as a collision repair instructor in her “New Grad” series, dedicated to helping the newest generation of DisruptHERs navigate the “real world” hurdles that a syllabus can’t prepare you for!
Your collision career begins long before your first professional repair order. It begins with how you show up, accept feedback, handle mistakes, protect yourself and treat the people learning beside you. Janna offers an instructor’s unfiltered guide to surviving your first weeks of collision school—from safety and respirator requirements to tool-truck temptation, communication and building a support system. You are not expected to know everything. You are expected to be ready to learn.
Last month, we talked about choosing the collision education path that fits your goals, finances and actual life – not the suspiciously organized fantasy presented in college brochures. Now, you have chosen. You are enrolled. The financial-aid forms have extracted their required portion of your soul, and your first semester is approaching. Before you walk into that classroom or lab, understand this:
You are not expected to arrive already knowing how to repair a vehicle. You ARE expected to arrive ready to learn how. Those are two very different things.
As a former collision repair instructor, I never judged first-semester students by how much they already knew. Some arrived with shop experience. Some had worked on vehicles with family members. Others could barely identify the tools in their new toolbox. None of that automatically determined who would succeed. In fact, students who entered the program convinced they knew everything often had the hardest adjustment. Confidence is useful; confidence with no interest in guidance is just an exhaust leak with opinions.
Like the clear we lay, this Gloss has coats. You've only just begun to scuff the surface!
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