The Kokomo Area Career Center offers a multitude of different opportunities for students all around Kokomo and the surrounding communities. With courses like culinary, veterinary, nursing, TV production and automotive collision repair, the KACC prepares students for their future and lets them test out options for different careers.
One popular KACC course is automotive repair. In addition to discussing current trends and practices in the automotive industry, the students are provided hands-on experiences repairing and diagnosing automobiles.
“A normal day in the automotive collision repair course is spending 15 to 20 minutes at the beginning of class going over what the students will be doing that day and the proper way to do it, and then they get to work,” said instructor Terry Williams.
The automotive collision repair course includes classroom and laboratory experiences concerned with all phases of the repair of damaged vehicle bodies and frames. This can include metal straightening, smoothing areas by filing, grinding, or sanding, concealment of imperfections, painting, and replacement of body components including trim. Students examine the characteristics of body metals including the installation of moldings, ornaments, and fasteners with emphasis on sheet metal analysis and safety.
Course coverage also includes instruction in personal and environmental safety practices as related to OSHA and other agencies that affect individuals working in the ground transportation technology areas. Additional instruction is given in the course on measurement principles and automotive fasteners. Instruction should also emphasize computerized frame diagnosis, computerized color-mixing, and computerized estimating of repair costs.
Additional academic skills taught in this course include precision measurement and mathematical calibrations as well as scientific principles related to adhesive compounds, color-mixing, abrasive materials, metallurgy, and composite materials.
Williams, along with the other automotive teachers, encourages students to take this course if they are interested in becoming an automotive technician. This course is for grades 9-12, offers two credits per semester. This course counts as a Directed Elective or Elective for the General, Core 40, Core 40 with Academic Honors and Core 40 with Technical Honors diplomas This course is aligned with postsecondary courses for Dual Credit at Ivy Tech at no additional cost.
