What qualities I believe an automotive technician should posses to be successful, is the mentality to love what they are doing to the point where they aren’t money motivated. A saying I’ve been told by countless people in my life; do something you enjoy in life because if you genuinely enjoy it, and you carry that mentality where you always want to know more, that’s something that nobody can take from you and something that would keep you pushing everyday. This can apply to anybody, and anything they want to do, you should never consider a career or a job if it’s something you wouldn’t enjoy doing and end up having the thought of not wanting to be there. To tie back to an automotive technician, you gotta be confident at all times. Confident that you can get the work done right but confident to ask for help, and to ask for tricks, and tips that could get the job done quicker and efficient; and the biggest one I could mention is the confidence to ask people to check on your work, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask, it would hurt more to live with a mindset of not knowing if you messed up than to bug your higher level techs, or service advisors about your work. For the starting out technicians, never be afraid to ask if you can do more, and again never be afraid to ask questions about anything. Service directors, and service advisors are constantly watching and hearing everything and anything; when you start presenting yourself as someone who wants to break into what would be the next level, you would be putting yourself in a position where they will test you for a good while to see how you would do with a taste of what a next level technician does. Everyday you punch in you have to show up and show out time in and time out; from what I’ve seen first hand, if you’re in a shop that keeps a consistent flow of cars coming in for repair, you could be climbing the ladder that not only gets you to a master tech position, but gets you to a point where financially you have enough to do more than just care for yourself, to do more than just make ends meet. To mention again, it all starts with being confidence, being curious, and carrying that ambition to learn more and do more things everyday.

Since I was a child what I loved doing was being able to take things apart, and getting as dirty as I could while working. Since I was a kid I would typically spend my weekends with my dad constantly working on our 1986 Chevy c10, or cruise it down the entire bay area for the fun of it. Even when we didn’t have enough money to go into anyplace we wanted to, we made the best of the time we spent with each other no matter the condition. Once high-school started, it was pushed heavily on the idea of college. To me college wasn’t one of the most appealing factor that I considered, they didn’t offer anything that caught my eye and heading into senior year I was clueless on what I wanted to do. It was until I got accepted for the automotive class that was offered at Eden Area ROP where I figured out what I wanted to pursue as a career. Being in ROP opened me to a instructor who has been in this industry for decades and knows it all inside and out, and getting to know and learn from people who are advanced or know a thing or two. Another thing that ROP presented to me was UTI, was a hard decision to look at, with such a big price that it comes with just to do automotive. I decided to apply to their Rancho Cucamonga location, but as school went on I was basically treated as an outcast, everybody was appraising schools like UCLA, USC, SFSU, and other colleges as if it was the garden of Eden while when I mention UTI, and me wanting to be an automotive technician, I was kind of looked at in a way that just implies “who would want to do hands on labour? And constantly be doing the dirty work”. I felt as if I was a outsider until me and my cousin who I’ve been close with for my whole life got our licenses. When we got our licenses we rode around in our old school cars anywhere, me in my Chevy c10, and him in his 72’ supernova. We would go to car meets what felt like everyday, and I would meet people just like me who was into cars; thats when I didn’t feel so lonely. After I graduated I spent the summer working at Dodge in San Leandro, and restoring my cousin’s 72” f100. This all came to an end when it was time for me to move to Rancho Cucamonga to attend UTI. I started August 25th, 2025 and since last week when I moved in all I’ve been hearing is my family tell me they are proud of me. Everyday I am here my heart aches more to be back home, but also has given the mentality to not just be good but to be great and make them proud come graduation. Thank you for your time and attention