Access Training
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Misleading and long
Decided I’d like to become a gas engineer and had a sales call with access training after researching the best companies to get the ACS qualification. Was told on the sales call that “you can do the course as quickly as you like, it’s up to you” so I quit my job and dedicated myself to the course full time, expecting to be qualified within 6-12 months. The webinars and theory training was good, I cannot fault Andy who has always been helpful and informative to everyone. But once that is over that is when the painful waiting time starts! First you have to book your theory test, then book 3 different sets of practical training, then book a practical assessment week (all of which can have months of waiting time in between if you want a local centre). I actually travelled 4 hours and spent a lot on hotels, to get my practical training done quicker as the waiting time for my local centre was 3-4 months. After you’ve been through all of that you then need to wait further months for them to sort your portfolio jobs out with an engineer, after sending multiple e mails with no replies I finally got my jobs booked in - which the engineers actually do and you just step in to take pictures, not learning much, similar to the practical training when we were told to just look at the book and do it yourself when handling gas and a boiler for the first time ever! Also when you have to wait months between steps you forget everything, so I think I was a better engineer 6 months ago than I am now. After you are done all your portfolio jobs the real painful process comes into play which is writing them all up and waiting months to them to be marked, and when they are you’ll get things to change on them- starting the whole process again as your work will go to the back of the line to be marked again and so on! As well as a lot of long method statements which can’t be similar to the correct method shown in the book or they’ll get sent back for you to do again, puzzling as the book shows the correct method? There’s only so many ways you can write the correct way without it being simular! There’s a lot of good reviews for access on here as the trainers ask you to do it during your practical sessions, and people are too afraid to leave negative ones as they want the qualification. Every gas student I’ve met on the course (around 20) feels the same as this. My advice would be to go to a company that offer an intensive course where you learn and do all the steps at once- planned out for you. As trying to get through this course with access has been a nightmare! And when you spend £5,000 it shouldn’t be like that. It may suit working people who want to take years to get their ACS but not anyone who wants to do it relatively quickly. I haven’t actually got to the ACS booking stage yet but I’m sure this will also take a lot of time, as my jobs will I’m sure be sent back by the governing body to be edited and then the wait time will again be months. I’ve met some great people but it’s no surprise there is a shortage of gas engineers when they make it this painful to become one.