Student 1st Driving School — Attraction in South El Monte

Update: I passed my driving exam first try in DMV West Covina! I also received my driver license card in the mail a week later. Everything we trained for was super useful and practicing the possible routes and being familiar with the area made a huge difference in boosting my confidence. To all future students and your parents, place your trust Student 1st and learn from the best of the best and be a successful safe driver.

Invest in yourself and in your loved ones, be the safe and courteous driver that everyone wants to be around and sign up for Student 1st Driving School lessons right now! Go from anxious to confident driver in less time than you think, thanks to their excellent instructors and their super effective methods. Just make sure to have an open-minded, listening, and learning mindset at all times to help accelerate your growth. Don't be afraid to ask the most basic questions, this will clear up any misconceptions especially early on.

For over a decade, I gave up driving after I failed my behind-the-wheel test. Recently I figured and decided that I need to seek professional help. I found Student 1st Driving School after googling driving schools near me and selecting the top rated one.

Within 3 days of training with my instructor David, I realized a few things. There's a good reason why their school is top rated. Their lessons are standardized, meaning our instructors might be different but it's the same top quality. David is very patient and has this super power of building trust and confidence in you. I like that he goes above and beyond for his instruction methods. I like the prepared binder of visual aids and diagrams showing the different traffic scenarios, explained well before you do the actual maneuver. I like how well-researched the selected practice areas are based on the lesson for the day, giving the student a diverse mix of traffic scenarios. He constantly provides feedback for all maneuvers, and when paired with repetition, results in me being given more chances to rectify & fine-tune my driving skills. I also make sure to ask all questions I have even if I think it might be common sense, it's better to verify than to assume.

I learned a lot so far and my confidence is significantly greater than before I started. I also realized that there's still more to learn, so I signed up for more as soon as my first 3 lessons were done. Upgrading from the 3-lesson to the 5-lesson package is easy, so don't worry about that, Eric has your back.

I'm lucky to have found that we share the same goals of becoming a safe driver. Whenever your ready, start your driving journey with Student 1st...

I had a terrific experience with Oscar and Student 1st. Oscar is incredibly helpful and effective at meeting you were you are (even if you're brand new) and tailoring lessons to focus on whatever areas you feel that you need to improve or even learn for the first time. If he feels that you're doing well, he'll modify your lesson plan to include some new things to practice. He's very observant and good at identifying even small mistakes; his feedback is always instant and I found that incredibly helpful, as I could understand what I was doing and how to do better. Similarly, he'll also let you know what you're doing well, which I always found to be a nice confidence boost and an indicator that I was improving.

Oscar does a great job at breaking things down in a digestible way that is easy to pick up. I personally remember dramatically improving my turning smoothness in one try after he analyzed what I was doing and explaining a simple algorithm for turning; I was almost in disbelief in the immediate improvement I saw. Little tips like braking techniques to smooth out stops, turns, and more are are so helpful to learn early on; eliminating the jerkiness makes you feel so much more in control.

Every single lesson was full of moments like these; I could see myself improving in real time and it was such an amazing feeling. Oscar is a truly good instructor and it really shows in his ability to comfortably and effectively guide you along. He's very easy to talk to and ask for specific advice, his honest opinion of how you're doing, or even just to have a casual conversation with. Should you want to, you can even use your final lesson to take your road test, which is what I did. Thanks to Oscar's invaluable teaching, and his honest evaluation that I was ready even when I doubted myself, I took the test and passed. I remember being pretty anxious before my first lesson, but by the end of it all that anxiety was long gone and I felt plenty confident and even looked forward to the next lesson; all thanks to Oscar's fantastic teaching ability and his earnest assurance that I was doing well.

If you're considering any driving school, I could not recommend Student 1st more. Oscar really cares about your success and truly prioritizes you in all areas: instruction quality, schedule flexibility, pricing, and friendliness. My experience was invaluable, and I can't thank...

I just finished three driving lessons with David an hour ago, and the tips he gave me actually stuck and will help me for the rest of my life. The first lesson focused on steering techniques for making right and left turns on small residential streets. The second covered left turns at T-intersections, how to handle unprotected green lights, and how to deal with protected left-turn signals. My third lesson walked me through making right turns on red and handling right turns on heavily congested local streets. Each session had a clear structure: David introduced the concept at the start, then we practiced it in real driving situations.

Throughout the lessons, David made sure I felt comfortable. In lesson one, he assessed my current skills and gave targeted feedback. He never pressured me into moves I wasn't ready for, and he always made sure I understood a concept before we practiced it. Even though I pick things up pretty fast, David was happy to slow down or adapt to whatever pace I needed.

A major takeaway was his focus on mindset and decision-making. He ran hypothetical scenarios and walked me through how to react. For example, he taught me the two positions for left turns: Position one, inching forward to prepare for a left turn while yielding, and Position two, staying behind the crosswalk when you're the second car. He also taught a simple pattern for right turns and navigation, "1, 2, you, 3," which helped me with timing and positioning at turning right on solid red lights. On top of that, David drilled the habit of turning your head for shoulder checks at intersections; he trained those movements until they felt like muscle memory, something I didn't have before. My driving test is tomorrow, and David made sure I understood the DMV environment and when to expect lane changes.

Because of David, I am confident that I will pass my driving test. I also loved the communication from S1 Student Driving School. They always reminded me a day before my lesson and alerted me when the instructor arrived to pick me up. My third lesson was postponed because of a minor vehicle issue, and they were quick to help me reschedule. Small problems happen, but how they handled it showed they prioritize safety and comfort over profits. S1 is a small Latinx-owned business, so please support them. My experience was with David, but I'm sure Oscar would be just as...