BREA, Calif. – The International Automotive Technicians’ Network (iATN) has developed a way for automotive students to join iATN through a new “student membership” program. Students are eligible for this type of membership if they are 18 years of age or older, attending automotive educational training courses (college, vocational, or similar) and are referred by an educator or instructor who is an existing member of iATN.

Student memberships are offered at no cost and have almost the same privileges as standard membership accounts, with one exception: they are “read-only.” Students will be able to login to iATN, read through the hundreds of thousands of forum discussions, including all of the waveforms and other files found therein, TechHelp requests and fixes, OEM information and the rest of the information found on iATN. They can even upgrade to a premium membership and search the iATN Knowledge Base to assist in their studies of real-world repair cases.

Students will not be able to post to iATN until they “graduate” to a full membership. Once a student member meets the full membership requirements of iATN, which includes four years of work experience in the automotive industry and/or ASE certification, they will be able to transition easily to a full membership.

“One of the longest-running requests from educators and instructors on iATN has been, ‘How can we get our students on here?’ We’re very happy that we now have an answer,” said Scott Brown, iATN president. “This is just the beginning, and over time, we look forward to more ways we will be able to work with educators to make iATN more useful and accessible to up-and-coming automotive professionals.”