Universal Technical Institute — Local services in Bloomfield

So I decided to go out of my own way and request a certain Saturday off from my job in order to attend one of Universal Technical Institute's open houses or campus tours. I've been looking for ways to supplement my current income, as well as I had been entertaining the thought of a possible career change. While I like my current job, it's not enough to live on one's own. And it just feels like in the coming years, more employers are looking for you to have those technical knowledge.

Although it wasn't as much of a shock to my system than if I had gone there completely "blind", and without having done other prior things to begin breaking the ice, I wasn't convinced that anyone just enroll in an institution like that. At the very least, not without very carefully considering everything in their own situation.

While my admissions representatives seemed respectful and courteous enough, I always just got the feeling that my severe lack of knowledge and experience in that field would be held against me.

The classrooms seemed well equipped for their purposes, and I damn hope that the instructors really care about their students and success, but especially that second part is just running on a lot of hope and faith.

What really hit the last nail in the coffin for me was the ridiculous amount that the tuition was estimated at. Who honestly has money like that lying around? You could buy yourself a new vehicle with that kind of money. And even if you did qualify for financial aid, it likely doesn't cover the entire amount and you'll still be left with some balance, having to pay out of pocket.

Be absolutely sure this is the career path you want to follow, before you possibly waste a year or more of your life, and be in debt, again, for tens of thousands of dollars. Every student they can get enrolled with them is just more money lining their pockets (just like another vocational and technical school that I don't want to have to name here).

It's beyond a travesty that they just take unfair advantage of all these young people trying to get ahead in life. And it's equally unfair that they do the same to older prospective students such as myself who are trying to reinvent themselves and either start a new career, or look for ways to supplement their income. I believe that knowledge should be shared, and not gatekeeped to a paywall.

Here's a few genuine tips. And you can take it from someone who was unfortunate enough to have been screwed out of his money in the past.

You might be surprised at the amount of content you can find on YouTube in regards to help for just about any topic. And you can always watch and rewatch those videos for FREE. I also have taken a few courses on Udemy when they were on sale at a huge discount. If you have a family member or friend who is knowledgeable in a certain topic, you don't have to hesitate to ask them if you're comfortable doing so. I even bought and downloaded a game called Car Mechanic Simulator on my Xbox, and I learned a few things through there.

Bottom line: UTI is just another for-profit institution. How else would the staff and faculty get paid, right? If you just want to know how to better care and maintain your own vehicle, there are plenty of other resources available to you that won't cause you to go broke.

Pros: +Well equipped and intuitive classrooms that allow the students get more hands on and apply what they are learning.

Maybes: "Seemingly" caring instructors and staff who are knowledgeable and current in their fields and want their students to succeed. But then again, looks can be deceiving. And remember that evil has the ability to assume a pleasing shape...

Cons: -Tuition is ridiculously overpriced. Especially considering that you can find similar content at many other sources at no charge or a fraction of the cost. -Difficult to get to campus if you live far away and don't have access to your...

This school is a SCAM on ALL levels, the EMs AND INSTRUCTORS are like the police force they are all friends that don’t separate work from friendship they will stalk you all around school as if your stealing they don’t have all the tools you need to do the school work

They will lie to you saying you do 90% hands on and the rest is book work …. that’s a lie I do more book work than hands on I could have went to regular school or go on YouTube to learn they don’t treat you with respect, they want you to kiss thier behinds

Im a current student by the way and I started a poll on all the students I met that just started there vs class vs starting there fourth or 5th CLASS and almost everyone that I met during thier first week of class to there 4th or 5th class they allllll say they wish they never came here and I’m not even joking this is facts … I started the poll because awhile back when I first started I noticed something that caught my attention and me I’m very observant very observant and so something caught my attention and I mentally took note of it… as time went on it happened again but In a different way so then I started to see more things that just didn’t go hand to hand with what they first told me when I first started the school or even when I did my tour … cause that’s when they will lie to you … during that tour … and so as time kept going and more things would come to light I started a poll with just me and my friends they all said they wouldn’t have came here so then I started it for new people and literally I’ve met some great people just off us having similar stories and experiences on how we were treated badly and never get to speak inside or how we fell about a situation….

Even with them being older you wouldn’t expect grown adults to try and treat you like they are your parents or your thier kid I say that because

If there’s something I have to say about a problem or issue that may have happened don’t try to shush me up by getting loud raising your voice and shouting as if I’m just someone from off the street and even if I was that don’t give you the right to treat people however you want ….

This school is a scam don’t come here if I was ever to give these people ZERO / 0 STARS I WOULD

IT SUCKS because you can try to do something great for yourself while you got evil everywhere in that school … if you can sense and feel energy as much as I can you’ll see and feel exactly what I’m talking about …..

There’s this one EM that everyone is scared of he literally follows you everywhere as if he has a App he can look at from his phone with all the cameras almost every hour or every other hour I see him and it’s not like I see him in passing it’s always me doing something as in walking up stairs in the ford fact building you can literally randomly look across the room /amy room and just see him somewhere in the shadows hiding and STARING just weird vibes at least say hey kids or students have a great day or something… it’s just a bunch of bunch evil negative energy please to come here my people please I’m literally warning you please read these comments in full not just mine ….. we clearly must be experiencing something that’s not sitting right …..

Please consider YouTube because that’s free and you won’t waste your time and money on teachers not teaching wanting you and actually HAVING you do everything…

The EMS and Instructors are like a gang

Literally just saw a instructor tell the EM what rules he wants to have for his class as if there isn’t set rules in place for a reason they are all friends and are all buddies that don’t separate the two and it’s very clear to see smh I expected wayyyy better they let me down...

Absolutely terrible place to attend. They don’t care about students at all and the STUDENT SERVICES department literally runs away from students. One of the few times I was actually able to contact the department, I missed part of class waiting for someone to talk to me and I overheard one of the women say word for word “we need to get out of here before these kids show up”. Keep in mind that this is literally their job, to serve students. The teachers are basically useless and if you don’t know what question to ask you are screwed. They don’t tell you what you got wrong on quizzes, tests or labs. You pay a ridiculous amount of money for these people to become your employees and they are terrible at it. I can rarely get in contact with financial aid, student aid, and their fasfa appointment which is why my personal enrollment took 5 months. They respond to reviews more than the students that are employing them, unless the school is emailing teachers about the fact that students aren’t wearing “uti outerwear”, which sucks in winter unless you plan on spending even more money. If I was able to do this all over again, I would never had chosen to go to this school, it’s a publicity stunt at best. If you plan to go for welding, DON’T. I had to pay almost $600 for their kit (nonoptional), it is filled with shit equipment and it’s not enough so you have to get more/better stuff. Plus if you add up the cost of the equipment in real life then you will see that you were overcharged A LOT. You are not given enough equipment in the kit or in the labs and half the lab equipment is broken or there’s not enough of it so as you are being overworked, you can’t even get done what you need to get done. Take the fact that this school advertises so much for only one of their courses, the auto program, and take that as a red flag. I honestly don’t understand why this place has a 4 star review and some of them don’t/haven’t attended the school. Please don’t come here. You will be stressed out, upset and heartbroken like I was when you found out you made such an expensive mistake. Update 5ish months later. Nothing has changed. All they care about are appearances. The microwave and wifi are barely available and ever working. Our equipment is getting more and more broken. They buy the auto students respirators but not the WELDING class. I’ve had to buy so much stuff because their kit is useless. There’s no one actually responding to these reviews btw, that’s why they are all the same. The people in charge actually don’t give a single crap about the people they are teaching. And I’ve now learned that businesses are going to be less likely to hire me because, even though I have certifications, I have no really world experience. I can’t say I blame them, I’ve seen the work this school does and it’s an expensive waste of time. They have NO interest in change. I’m currently welding pipe and I’ve never taken a class on it or done this before but they want to fill time instead of actually caring and editing their program.

Another update: the teachers don’t know how many quizzes we are taking! They have given us useless information and blackboard says 2 quizzes, our white board says 3 and we were just given notes for a quiz 4. NO ONE HAS ANY CLUE WHATS GOING ON. Don’t walk, SPRINT AWAY FROM HERE.

Update literally the same day as the last one. My teacher spent so long yapping about nothing and now we have less then an hour to do a lab using filler metal, something we’ve never learned how to do. Thanks UTI for being the best at...