Hi everyone, It's going to be super wordy but I just passed my driving test this June at first attempt and I would like to share my experience and views to other friends who are thinking whether to choose school/private or are unsatisfied with your current learning experience. I started learning driving right after my 18th birthday. I enrolled in CDC Ubi as a school learner. So I gone through what a CDC learner would do, going for basic theory; final theory tests. I opted for this "One Team" whereby you would be assigned with two fixed instructors and one fixed car to learn for the entire driving lessons. (I'm learning manual by the way) Similar to the others, I'm very excited to begin on my driving lessons. I went for the first driving lessons and the instructor was not bad, he's quite patient towards me and he's those uncle uncle type. But he told me my next lesson will be taught by another instructor who is slightly younger than him. So I didn't go and think that much, and during that period of time, my impression for school instructor is still quite pleasant. I started my second lesson with that younger instructor and it was still going fine. But during the next few consecutive lessons, I realized that his temper was getting bad to worse. I don't know anyone will feel it but it's like you paid the money to learn driving and obviously you would want to have a pleasant and relaxing lessons to make you look forward to the next upcoming lessons. But the lessons that I was attending that was taught by this younger instructor apparently is so bad that whenever I made a mistake, he would scold me like there's no tomorrow. It's just so bad because you would feel even more stress and lost. Just wanted the whole lessons to end very fast and not see him again. I remembered the worse lesson I had with him, was he actually stepped on the brake so hardly in the circuit and blame me because I was turning on a smoother bend but was a slightly sharper bend. He literally stopped the whole car and sounded really fierce. Started to scold me things like "Didn't you saw that car approaching? Did I just taught you? Why can't you just listen to my instructions?" And he sighed REALLY loud that makes you feel really bad and he kept silent throughout the rest of the entire driving lessons till he got instructions to give you. I know it's my fault and I might be overreacting but I'm a really slow learner so I really hope to have a more patient instructor. From those days onward, I tried to avoid attending his lessons by getting to know what's my other instructor's time slot. But as days passed by, I realized that their teaching styles are so different. The older instructor will teach me his ways and when I got really comfortable on his style, I drove how he taught me when I'm attending the younger instructor. But apparently, the younger instructor doesn't like it and he wanted me to redo the entire few lessons that I've done with the older instructor. Well, initially I thought that maybe he just want me to learn a better way to improvise myself but after a few lessons, he's just repeating on the lessons that I'm having and I felt that the money I spent was wasted. I did told that older instructor about the younger instructor's attitude and I felt really stress learning under him. But he just smiled and told me that's his temper no choice. But why do I have to endure his bad temper when I'm the one paying? There's one day when after I've attended the lesson taught by the older instructor, he still jokingly told me "Ahh so I think that you're still doing fine. But if the next lesson taught by him. He might as you to redo redo redo if he don't like one ah!" I felt really disgusted and demoralised when I heard about it. I discussed with my family and told them that I really don't want to continue learning from these two instructors already. So we had to struggle whether to go private or stick with it since I'm already halfway through learning. I started to go to search for private instructors but I couldn't find any decent one. Then I started to realise that actually CDC has two outlet: Ubi and Kovan one. In that period of time, I thought to myself why not try Kovan one? I'll still remained as a student and it's easier too. I went to find for reviews but I kept seeing people said Kovan outlet too small, instructors limited, lessons difficult to book. But after I've officially transferred to Kovan outlet, I understood why the lessons are difficult to book. It's obviously because they have better instructors that's why people would tend to stick to them to learn. I lived near Sengkang so I opt for Sengkang pick-up point. So they gave me a fixed car with two fixed instructors too. The counter there is more friendly as compared to Ubi one. There's like two to three uncles there to pick up phones and help you with all the things. They're really helpful to me when they heard about my case. I started to learn driving at about 2014 September and I stopped going to the Ubi one at around 2014 December. I had to wait for a longer period of time to be able to attend lessons again because the lessons were really packed and full. There's no remaining lessons to book anymore. But I just waited and finally I get to book for my first lessons with the Sengkang instructors. I was feel really nervous because I don't know if I'll be getting back the same kind of instructors as I would in Ubi. But I was quite surprised that the instructor was really very very friendly. He learned about my situation and guided me patiently throughout the rest of my entire driving lessons with them. I've attended both of the instructors' lessons and they were really patient. They would also give you advice on when to book test dates; what to note and etc. I saw people saying that enrolling in Kovan might not be good because the time might be wasting in travelling down to Ubi if you need to do circuit like parking and stuff but I don't find it that way. Because you can get to drive to the school, gaining experience to drive outside more often and techniques to cope with the cars from outside. I didn't know that we can actually book a "back-to-back" lessons whereby you can attend two lessons at once. That will give you more time to be able to practice in circuit and during the Ubi learners go for break that 10 minutes, you get to practice parking without queuing! There are pros and cons but I definitely recommend Kovan CDC to everyone. The only cons that I could think of is the lessons booking are really competitive. You need to be fast when you're booking for lessons because timing like sat/sun will get booked instantly like within 3 minutes when they launched. And also I'm going to give a shout out to my instructors in Sengkang because they're really great! I enjoyed learning from there, I'm driving on 259 and look out for this instructor: Deon Quek. He's really a very very good and patient instructors. Whereby for Ubi one I would say I used to be in 282 Car but the experience was really really unpleasant. I dragged for quite a long time before going for the test. It's almost going to be half a year. I took about 40 lessons before going for the test because I'm a really slow learner and I've also transferred here and there. Anyway I hope that helps and feel free to PM me if you got any questions. Thank you!
P.S: Just want to encourage peeps who are currently struggling with driving or etc, don't give up! I'm seriously a very slow and dumb learner but I finally cleared. So if I can, you can too!
