Tennessee College of Applied Technology Knoxville — Local services in Knoxville

Decent school. Will waist your time on training that should be done by a high school freshman, entering their first job. Things like two star rated “SkillsUSA Career Essentials”. Despite the overwhelming majority of students finding it unhelpful and an academic distraction from the rest of their learning. It is a check in a box for the school though, thinking this will fix the number one issue with employees that employers face, punctuality and attendance. It won’t. But the school pushes hours of it anyway, despite overwhelmingly negative student feedback. Honestly the school cares very little on student feedback. Hence no student government body. Faculty has overall say.

I’ve done three programs here. I mainly return due to how my GI Bill is charged. Basically I do it for the money. The welding program was great under Greg Brooks. Other instructors? May get a lesser or greater experience. Depends on the instructor. Had Will Drainy for the electrician program, and he was great. Moved on, and Nick Paterson took over, and program became a joke in comparison. I ended up co-oping early to get away from the mess of a program. Then automotive with Andy Smith was good. Good instructor but a big disconnect with what he teaches and the third party programs he uses, and the actual ASE certifying tests. He knows he trade, but doesn’t know his third party content he assigns us. Trusts the name of the provider(cdx), and blindly assigns it based on that. When problems are routinely brought up on the content/sources, we waves it off and says he doesn’t know. Much of the instructing will come from third party online sources, with his lectures being good but minimally helpful in regards to the assignments, all of which come from CDX, DealerCONNECT, SP2, SkillsUSA…again none of which has Andy Smith actually done. So he has little to nothing to do with the vast majority of tests, quizzes, and assignments, you will do. Almost nothing is “his material”, maybe that’s good, maybe not. I find it not good, when the content lacks and he can only acknowledge it, but can’t/won’t fix anything.

Point being it’s an ok school, but depends on your individual instructor. The front office is often less than helpful and cares more of the image and politics involved in academia, than student feedback…but the “trades” are so in demand and the basic training you get can land enough people into that $14-18/hr range..so many students are content. Having done multiple courses for pleasure, I’ve had more opportunities to see the schools faults. Be prepared to be viewed as high school students, who are on the payroll of the school..as opposed to adult learners who are paying to attend the school. Weird priorities on their end. #1 is “worker characteristics” (stuff public school teaches you like follow directions and behaving around others) #2 the actual skills of your selected trade.

3 out of 5….but they push several 1 or 2 star products which you’ll be required to spend many hours on, with no return aside from “putting...

Let me start out with my instructions are absolutely amazing and worth the b.s. I went through. They are the only reason I graduated and had a great job before graduation. That being said the admin office and corporate office is a absolute joke with the worst employees I've ever seen. They started me out at the end of a trimester (yes they go 4 months) and I asked them will this screw up the hours I need and they told me no many times so I stupidly believed them. They forced me to buy a book I didn't need at all or I wouldn't receive my money and this book cost me 300 dollars and it sits wrapped in plastic to this day. Every single time I needed something i.e. money from Fasfa they told me the wrong info and wrong amounts and when I was going to get it. Thankfully I work full time and I didn't depend on that money cause I would get it months after said date. They go through employees as fast as anybody changed their clothes so any time I called it would more then likely be a new person. Lucas and Yolanda were the only 2 that actually helped me. Towards the end of my schooling I called the new student services lady who had a Latina accent and talked to her many times and she was rude every time. She told me my graduation date 3 times the same day with my full name and student ID. The day I graduated I was excited and called and they told me it would take a week or two to get my diploma cause they told me when I could walk or I had to sign up by a certain date so I got that taken from me also which I wanted my kids to watch me walk as a motivation to them but they took that from me. I wait for my diploma after again giving them my full name and SD number and after a month they told me I had a balance due cause i didn't finish my hours. After it took them another 3 weeks to figure out a simple task they informed me I was suppose to stay in school for another 2 weeks cause I started late and when I told the lady that told me my graduation date 3 TIMES she got very rude and disrespectful towards me. They said I could apply for a grant or something like that and they would call me back again after a few weeks of them never calling me back they told me they can't forgive the small balance I owed. They never call you nor will they help you in any way. The corporate office is just as useless and I would not recommend going here unless you are ready for some bull. My instructions are top tier and I have nothing but respect for them and they are the reason I got a job within months of starting and now working at a great company. The admin office should be absolutely ashamed with how terrible they are towards the people who make sure...

I was a student at TCAT Knoxville in Automotive Technology in the fall of 2018. Going into the class, it was presented as everything I had hoped for in college. I have a passion for automotive and thought that the class would teach me and help me get a good job as a future auto tech. I met Mr. Smith before starting the class and he assured me that the class would be very beneficial and he seemed to be a knowledgeable and pleasant teacher to have. Sadly, I found that to be completely false. Going into the second week of school, I had no desire to be there. Mr. Smith was simply a pain to be around. He was completely different than I remember him being during orientation and when I personally met him before beginning the class. He seemed like a totally different person. He was not friendly or sympathetic to students problems. Also, I was very disappointed to see that I was not being taught the information that I needed to learn. It was rare that we would have lectures covering the information presented in our books. I spent many countless hours working at my computer, teaching myself the information that I thought I had paid a school to teach me. I was also aggravated when I realized how little shop time I was able to receive. I was told that there was plenty of work to be done, and many live jobs to be seen every day. This is technically true but it is very difficult to keep everyone busy on a live job when there are only 3 bays to work in (one being off limits to day class). While covering the brakes course, I personally was only given 3 live jobs to work on. I am a visual learner and it is very difficult for me to be able to learn everything by reading a book. Lastly, i would like to advise the fact that Mr. Smith does not treat students equally. There were many times I saw him get very aggravated at good students who made a simple mistake while other students could make that same mistake and it would be as if Mr Smith did not mind at all. There were even times that students, who had been there well over a year, would drop out or were even failed over a very small mistake. I understand we all make mistakes and that those who do should be treated equally, not judged differently. For anyone looking to take the automotive program, I encourage you to strongly reconsider. Coming from a student who has been there under Mr Smith, I can promise you, it will not be a fun experience. I would not recommend the...