Spring Break: A Student Driver's Experience

The spring break of my second semester in the '24-'25 school year was spent mainly on my driver's training and summer program applications. (in this post I'll be informing yall on my personal driving experience)

Driving for the first time was surprisingly simple. On the first day, my coach Alexandra (Alex) gave me the choice of starting straight for the road or having me practice at an empty parking lot area. Being the adventurous and daring person I am, I decided to hop straight to the drivers seat. As a child, I never really paid much mind to how it felt sitting in the passengers seat, much less in the drivers seat. I didn't spend much time being a passenger seat kid, since my parents were monotonously clean freaks, and only allowed food in the back of the car. Being able to touch the wheel was like a miracle.

As my driving lesson started, my coach informed me of the different interior parts of the car. Alex made sure I could see the side mirrors, back mirror, as well as over my shoulders, making sure my seat was positioned correctly for take off. By the end of this preparation, my anxiety had slowly built up. Finally, I pushed down the breaks, turned on the engine, and set the parking mode to driving mode.

First, I had to make sure my left signals were turned on, no cars passed by me, and I pulled out of the curb and went straight in the middle of the road. Surprisingly, I didn't need to push down on the accelerator that hard. At most, I needed a push to get the car started, but for the rest of the lesson consisted of a combination of shifts between the brakes and the accelerator.

Each lesson I took was 2 hours long and took place in the local cities. In total, I took 3 lessons (6 hrs altogether). Some memorable experiences I'd like to note down are the opportunity to be able to drive through hilly conditions and learning the rules of traffic lights. Despite my courage and confidence throughout this training period, I would say the most difficult part of driving is being able to identify what times it's permitted to turn on a traffic light and when it isn't. Sometimes there's protected turns, sometimes there's unprotected turns, and sometimes the driver will need to drive in the middle of a crossroad to wait for traffic and then enter their desired lane before the next one comes. On the other hand, driving through a neighborhood settled in the foothills was both fun and challenging. I was able to test my control of the wheel and pedals as I curved through one road into another, making sure I wasn't crossing my lane, nor bumping into other cars. I can confidently say--that single 2-hr session enhanced my control of the car a lot better.

Overall, I'd rate my experience driving a 8/10, having 2 points deducted for some of my gnarly turns and lane changes. By the end of spring break, I learned to U-turn, shift lanes, turn left/right, and I had explored my local areas. I was able to work with two coaches, and both of them helped me in the most I could ever ask for.