Self-Paced and On-Demand
The most important thing to remember is that you are in control of your training. This is a self-paced, on-demand course—all you need is an internet connection and a device to view the course material on. Train at work between hands-on service calls, or train at home, coffee-shops, libraries, etc. Knock out a couple units at a time, or pop in for five minutes to review a concept.
Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to master all aspects of appliance repair, on your own schedule and on a reasonable budget. This training is for your job and livelihood—mastering this material will improve your income, job success and work satisfaction—so nothing should stand between you and mastery.
Course Structure
Each course is divided up into modules and units. Modules cover a broad subject, such as Basic Electricity, and are made up of units, which are like lessons. Each unit has a quiz at the end that you must take before you move on to the next unit. And most modules end with an exam.
The Training Process:
- You will go through each course one unit at a time.
- For each unit, watch any training videos, read the material (including any assignments in the textbook), and listen to any audio.
- If you have questions, ask them in the Ask the Teacher Forums. It may seem like there’s a lot of distance between us and you, this being an online course, but our job is to help you become a better tech. If you need something explained in a different way, or broken down a bit more than how we present it in a lesson, we are more than happy to do that.
- Once you feel you’ve got a handle on the material, take the quiz. You will immediately see your quiz results and, if you pass, you can move on to the next unit.
Quizzes and Certification
The quizzes are designed to help you evaluate how well you understood the material, and can be retaken. We encourage our students to take note of the questions they missed, re-study the concepts behind them, then retake the quiz to guarantee mastery of the material.
If you are aiming to earn your MST Certification, then you must achieve an 80% or higher on each unit quiz, and a 90% or higher on each exam (module, midterm, final)—certification scores are not based on averages. You have two attempts on each quiz or exam to achieve this score.
If you still have not achieved the desired score after the second attempt, you can submit a quiz or exam reset request. If you are considering a reset on a quiz, don't move forward with the training just yet. Reach out to us first, otherwise you will lose further progress.
"But What About Hands-on-Training?"
The short answer: students who are current techs will be working on actual appliances every day on the job. Learn in your downtime, then apply the skills and knowledge during your service appointments, cementing your new knowledge.
The long answer: The reason this method works is that we aren't teaching how to disassemble an appliance or change parts (that’s what service manuals are for). We teach the troubleshooting skills so that, when you show up at a home to fix a freezer that doesn't freeze or a dryer that doesn't dry—no matter the make or model—you know where to look, what to test, and what to do to fix the problem.
"But what about us techs not working at the moment?" Whether you’re a complete newbie or in-between jobs, there are work-arounds:
- You can work on your own appliances, or those of your friends and family
- You can get junk/used appliances (from Craigslist for example) to work on at home
- Or you can dive straight into taking repair jobs on the side, starting very slowly
If you need help figuring out a work-around, we’re happy to help.
To this day, we have only heard praise from our former students, and zero complaints about not including hands-on-training. Plus, we save our students thousands of dollars because they don't have to take days off to fly across the country to take in-person training that isn't necessary.