Hey Coyotes! During the month of December we were given the opportunity to learn about the ROP Course of Auto Tech. We were able to go into their shop and take pictures of some of the projects that the students have done. We interviewed some of the students to share with us what it is that they’ve done in that class. We also got the chance to interview the teacher to explain what Auto Tech is.
We started off by interviewing Mr. Garcia so that we could get an understanding of what ROP is and what Auto Tech is overall. Here’s how that went!
Alexis Villa started off by asking Mr. Garcia “What is ROP?”
Mr. Garcia answered “ROP is an adult career program where it trains students to be ready for a career ready type of job industry and also preparing them for college that if they’re going into whether its medical careers, automotive, or even becoming a chef, this is kind of the starting point to get them into that field and then maybe going to college and pursue getting further.”
Alexis then asked “How long have you been teaching here and why did you choose to?”
Mr. Garcia says “This is actually my first year teaching here at Buena Park, I actually started at La Habra. This is my second year teaching. The reason why I chose to teach, I used to be a technician for over twelve years and I always enjoyed being a mentor, I used to mentor in martial arts and this is kinda just like the next step where I wanted to give back to the youth I guess you’d say.”
Alexis asks “What do you like about teaching this class?”
Mr. Garcia says “Everything. I get to see these kids mess up and kinda learn, right, cause all the stuff that we do in this class applies into real life and as my students start to get cars they get to fix them, they get to break them, and fix them again.”
Alexis goes on by asking “What are the benefits of taking this ROP course?”
Mr. Garcia says “Well I guess one of the best ways I could put it, since you’re a female, I’ve had female students in the past where they tell me ‘Well if I get stranded on the side of the road I wanna know how to put my spare on and not have to call my mom, dad, my boyfriend’ or whatever the case is and they’re more independent that way. That’s just one mindset but it can go even further to the point of like ‘What if my engine goes out and I wanna rebuild it,’ well you can get the first fundamentals of it, get a little more advanced, and then go to college, get even more advanced and be able to do these things for yourself and maybe a career out of it.”
Finally, Alexis asks “Can you give us a quick explanation of what a year looks like in this class?”
Mr. Garcia says “Being that this is my first year here, I’m kinda treating everyone that I have now as intro, only because they didn’t really have a solid instructor for the last couple years but as we’re going along the year, I’m figuring out which one of my kids are a little more advanced that way I can push them to going further. So, a year in this class for those that are continuously improving, we are gonna attend competitions at Cypress College, Fullerton College, we are gonna attempt to do an engine building competition, where my students have to try to tear down and rebuild an engine in seventeen minutes in order to qualify for Sema, that’s a show that’s in Las Vegas so. There’s a lot of different competitions that we wanna do but other than that there’s just other certification things that we wanna get done as well.”
After learning more about what ROP is and what Auto Tech is, we wanted to interview some students so that we could get their point of view on why they like the class. We also wanted to hear about what it is that they do in the class. Mr. Garcia picked out students for us and shared with us some of their stories so that we could also ask about experiences they’ve had where they’ve used their knowledge from this class outside of school. Here’s how that went!
Alexis started off by asking “Why did you choose to join this class?”
Senior Devyn Azzolina says “I joined this class cause I’ve been in it the last couple years and I decided to finish my senior year off with it.”
Senior Jacob Guzman says “I kinda wanted to involve myself in a little bit of like extra school activities so I thought that was a gateway to that.”
Alexis then asks “What are some of the jobs you guys have done in the class?”
Devyn says “Some jobs is pulling out the motor from a 350z, I’ve done a transmission on a ‘91 Accord, and we’ve done minor break jobs and other stuff.”
Jacob says “Going along the same lines as Devyn, yeah we’ve done like engine rebuilds a little bit, we’ve kinda gotten familiar with the cars such as the Kias, our shop cars, and using the equipment around as well.”
Alexis asks “Why did you pull the engine and transmission from the vehicle?”
Devyn says “We pulled the engine and transmission from the vehicle to learn more about the engine and how to take it apart and put it back together and rebuild it.”
Finally, Alexis asks Jacob “How’d you crash your car and what’d you do to repair it?”
Jacob says “So one of my ball joints on my left side control arm collapsed inwards causing me to lose control. I ended up going into a curb and a tree which caused my axle to pop out of my passenger side, both my rims bent in, my oil pressure sensor popped out which caused starter problems. I got all of that fixed within like three days.”
After hearing about the student’s experience in this class and learning more about the things they do in this class, we think that this ROP Course is a great way for students to learn some great skills to become more independent. We hope that you guys are interested in learning more and joining this class next year!
