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.

A DNA test, a backyard wedding and an unexpected collection of siblings taught Chasidy something she did not realize she still needed to learn: belonging can heal what rejection left behind. In this deeply personal editor’s note, she connects the family that welcomed her without hesitation to the mentors, coworkers and communities that help women find confidence in collision repair. Sometimes confidence does not open the door. Sometimes someone opens it for you—and confidence follows.