After dropping out of high school, Jorge Maldonado jumped around from job to job for years but when he grew tired of working long hours for minimum wage, he found a solution at UEI College.
“I didn’t finish high school because I was gang related,” Jorge said. “Finishing high school was very hard for me considering there were people waiting for me on every corner… I did construction for ten years. I was a foreman. I ran a crew. Then I fell off a ladder, they fired me. I started working for a vending machine company and was working 110 hours every two weeks… I just got tired of it. In my head the only thing that was going to make me happy was to go back to school and learn an effective trade that is booming in the industry right now.”
It was that thought that led Jorge to UEI College’s Huntington Park campus and the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Technician program.