And this goes back to my one major "beef" or whatever about diving that there are way too many people that get cert. because the class is a joke. You don't even need to know how to swim to pass, and if you can't swim how is it possible to be comfortable in the water?
Oh please, don't get me started about scuba equipment dependency...
ASW
"Don't believe everything you think"
Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
Don't EVEN get me started on the certification process that exists today for the basic diver courses. There are not enough hours in the day for me to articulate all the issues I have with today's certification process!
Suffice it to say, the current thinking that guarantees a certification regardless of ability, WILL BE MORE OF AN ISSUE EACH DAY!!!!
Maybe not though!
I just bumped into a NAUI instructor today doing some checkout dives with his students at the quarry. We were talking about the class and such and he said that the class started out with 28 students, and there were 15 that actually made it to the checkout dives. That alone is a large dropout rate. He also said that only 8 of the divers would actually get their C-cards and the others needed more work before he would sign off for their cards.
Of course he could be telling me B.S., but from talking to him for a while, I don't think so. He was teaching for a University so that could be the reason, but I was still impressed.
I usually feel that the training is not even remotely enough, but there are some of the " good ol' " instructors left out there that care about doing it right (not DIR doing it right, but maybe that as well)
A class of 28 is pretty big but maybe not for a university
It is a really big class. When I was in college they offered SCUBA class, and the same thing happened. A lot of students showed up for the first few classes and then they were gone.
I think they were thinking "oh...scuba....easy A", but then they had to learn dive tables....LOL
I actually appreciate instructors who put the fear in these frisky would-be divers. My friend who is an instructor often has students who end up whining, "but scuba is supposed to be fun!" Well! Stay in the swimming pool where the conditions are controlled! I know a guy who got his wife and 13-year-old daughter into diving, both are rescue-diver level now because of that mindset of continuous learning and preparation for the unexpected. That simply comes with the territory.
As the T-shirt says: Life's a beach, then you dive.
I have dived this reef (the day after I gained my open water) and it was a wonderful experience, I was lucky to have fantastic conditions and my buddy was the instructor who had just done my training. I am sorry your experience wasn't as good.
On the subject of certification,I don't know what happens at other dive schools but at the Red Sea college where I did my PADI there were a few people who were failed either because they couldn't do some of the exercises ie. mask removal underwater or they didn't do it confidently enough. My intructor made me do the techniques over and over even if I "passed" the first time.
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