At the start of day 5 we gained one more student. Someone from the class that just finished State testing needed a little bit more help, so they have joined our class. So we are currently at 10 students.

Day 5 was very similar to day 4. We started out by completing a detailed pre trip off of the test material.

Next we broke off into five groups of 2 students and started rotating through five different stations. Everyone had a truck today, so no more sharing! The stations consisted of offset backing, straight backing, two different docking stations and a pre trip station.

After rotating through these stations at an hour each for seven hours today, we all got many chances to practice backing these trucks up. A big bonus today was that we used the same trucks that we will take all of our tests in for the harder stations. These trucks are newer, Freightliner Columbias, so they handle a lot differently than the driving range trucks which are the older FLD's.

Lots of great practice time behind the wheel today! We have been given July 4th off, mostly because the instructors are salaried and they would have lost the day, so day 6 will be on Sunday. Day 6 will be our last day in the classroom with some Hazmat testing and a Map reading class.

Today was a great day, we started with 10 students and we ended the day with 10 students. One thing to note about the end of day 5 is that we are now responsible for at least a portion of the tuition after today. There is a prorated formula for the tuition cost from now till the end of day 11, and I have listed it below.

Terminated on 0-5th business day of class $0 owed.
Terminated on 6th day of class $1020 owed.
Terminated on 7th day of class $1190 owed.
Terminated on 8th day of class $1360 owed.
Terminated on 9th day of class $1530 owed.
Terminated on 10th day of class $1700 owed.
Terminated on 11th day of class or later $3900 owed.

As a footnote, I am trying to post as much about my experience with Swift's Academy simply because I wish this information had been posted when I was trying to make my decision. I am not trying to convince anyone that Swift is the best choice for them, I simply believe that this information could help others that are trying to decide if Swift is right for them.

I would think if you're "terminated" at any point you shouldn't owe a dime. Maybe then they'd do a more extensive look into your past job history ect. Now if you go through the whole deal and decide it's not for you, them you just learned a $4000.00 lesson.

The word "Terminated" is the word they used in the contract. Simply put, if you leave or are sent home from school after day 5 you owe money.

That makes more sense.

Man, I don't know. I think it's a real ****ty time to be getting into this. I wish you all the luck though. I know what it's like to get your mind set on something no matter what.

Let me start by saying that I will continue to post in this thread until I have completed my training. I do not plan on abandoning this thread as someone has suggested.

So today was day 6 of the training program, and it was the completion of our classroom time. We started the morning with a couple of videos on Hazardous Materials. These are some old videos that were produced for MS Carriers, but also pertain to Swift since they acquired MS Carriers.

The first video was informational only. Pretty much just the basics.
The second video took us about 2 hours to complete. The video would pause every few minutes so we could answer questions on the segment we just watched. The test was 50 questions, and everything was covered in the video. This was essentially an open book test, and we all passed with flying colors.

Next we had a map reading class that basically acquainted us with the atlas and how to read it. We spent about an hour on the tutorial and then took a test on maps. This test was a team effort where we could work as a group. 40 questions that tested the different skills to mapping. The questions asked us to determine the distance between multiple cities, find the shortest route, compute the fuel consumption, compute travel time and other such figures.
This test was rather detailed, with a lot of group discussions, but we all passed the mapping test.

Next we had a powerpoint presentation on a healthy lifestyle.

At the end of the classroom instruction, we completed out Trainers evaluation for classroom instruction.

The last 2 hours consisted of a lot of pictures and youtube style videos on drivers that made bad decisions. We saw a bunch of rolled trucks, a few guys that thought they could make it under a 12'4" bridge and other crash pictures.

Day 7 will continue with more range time were we will continue to practice for the skills test and pre-trip inspection.

Today was Sunday, we started with 10 students and finished with 10 students.

I asked Vicki today and she said that Junior is currently going Solo in his KW T-2000. She does not know his truck number, but Mark the school manager will. Apparently he has a daily game called "Where is Junior at today". I will try and get that truck number from Mark for you.

Nothing too exciting happened today! We started the day with an hour for pre-trips, then started training on the driving range with our assigned instructors that will get us through the rest of our training.

We went through the same stations that we have been doing for the last few days.

For the last two hours our instructor took us for a ride around the block. He explained the basics of shifting and gave us a demonstration.

Day 8 will start with another pre-trip, and then we will spend the rest of the day shifting.

Like I said, nothing exciting happened today. We did start with 10 students, the guy that joined us on Friday retested at the DMV and passed so he is going on to his orientation. Now our class has 9 students, but nobody got sent home.

Great reporting! Keep up the good work!

Seems you are getting a bit more 'show and tell' than we got when I went thru the school. Ed was the guy on the range, as all of the road instructors were busy with the previous weeks class. Ed and a couple others were 'range instructors' but we usually saw Ed the most. We were put into 4-person groups, and we'd rotate from 60' and 100' straight backs, and 2 alley docks. We weren't ever shown anything about (proper) shifting till day 1 on the road, where we did the "Lewiston 500".

So am I correct in reading that pay scale that subracting .01 per mile as you said, you are only starting at .25 per mile? Please tell me I am wrong on that.........:hellno: