After trying to sign up for a different driving school twice to no avail, my dad decided to send me to Stevens. Initially, I was somewhat hopeful. For my first lesson, I actually had a really nice instructor who took me around my block and taught me the basics. After this lesson, however, I got a call stating that I would be transferred to another instructor, as my original one (Jared) had gone on emergency leave. Although I was a bit down, I shrugged it off as I assumed my next teacher would be fine. Wrong. As soon as I opened the car door the stench of smoke permeated my nostrils, and felt like a punch to the gut. A wave of uneasiness quickly overtook me as the car was filled to the brim with random bags, papers, and other literal garbage. Instead of reminding me of how to operate certain parts of the car (like adjusting the seat and mirrors) my instructor, Tabitha seemed rather impatient with my confusion. Despite just finishing my final lesson (although I thankfully never got lesson 10 which is something I will address later) I honestly do not remember learning anything driving-related. Every time I rushed out of school to be on time for my appointments, Tabitha seemed more concerned with menial small talk then giving me genuinely helpful advice. For a majority of our "lessons", she would spend the session attempting to chat me up to no avail, and then harping on how quiet and unresponsive I was (because I was simply trying to focus on navigating the roads!). She was also very careless and created very frequent and quite frankly dangerous distractions for me, such as loudly talking on her phone to random family members with the speaker blaring, blatantly texting and browsing her phone in lieu of actually watching me drive, and sifting through all of the junk in the car. Tabitha also has this 'funny' habit of pointing out every. single. dog. in close proximity to the vehicle, which was not only a major disturbance but flat out annoying (especially to someone who is a cat person). Despite all of the questionable things that happened during these lessons, the thing that upset me the most was the ridiculous time periods between sessions. I started my lessons the day before my first day of senior year with the hopes of getting my license relatively quickly. I am now over halfway done with my senior year and finally have my license because I took matters into my own hands! When my lessons started in early September, I was assured that I would be taking my road test in late October at the latest. October rolled around, and the date was constantly shifting backward until it escalated into 2020! It felt like every time I had a 30-minute lesson (she cut them short) the time between my next session grew longer. Things got so bad to the point where I was having one lesson a month if I was lucky. This was extremely frustrating as Tabitha would become impatient with me when I slipped up and was rusty, despite not having lessons for weeks prior. I originally was not even going to bother wasting my energy on writing a review, but the straw that broke the camels back was my "final" lesson. Although my dad paid for the 10 lesson package, I only ended up using 9 of them as I passed my road test (thank God). Tabitha was very unclear on how lesson #10 would work, as it was technically my road test (which was NOT clarified). During my 5-hour course (at Steven's mind you) I was instructed to schedule my own road test, which I proceeded to do. When I told Tabitha about my test date, it was as if all hell broke loose. As I frantically fumbled in the driver's seat, (evidently rusty as I had not had a lesson since 2019) she raved on and on about how I was not supposed to schedule my test (which was NEVER mentioned). She then called my father and somehow convinced him that I had to cancel my road test, re-schedule it for MID February, and how I was not prepared at all to even take it. At this point, I had had my fill of these "lessons" and refused to cancel my test. Luckily I passed, so I will not be wasting any more of my time withering away in the front seat of that ashtray-scented car. The fact that I was absolutely dreading these sessions by lesson 3 should be extremely telling of what kind of establishment is being run here. For the hefty price, my family paid for this, I really expected more. If you are looking for a driving school, go anywhere but here, and if for whatever odd reason you DO decide to choose Stevens, do NOT let Tabitha instruct you!
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TLDR: Rude instructor, lessons months apart :/ read more
