The name of the certification is a relic of its origin, and it is misleading today.I’ll be honest and add that I didn’t feel that I learned much during AOW. Maybe because I already learned a lot from sites like this one.
Next course I want to take is deep diver and I don’t think I’ll learn much from that one either. My expectation is that it will be more of just getting more experience and maybe boosting confidence a bit. I expect that the next time I truly learn something new will be Rescue and Nitrox.
In the mid 1960s, there were essentially two dive certifications-scuba diver and instructor. As stated earlier, Los Angeles County added AOW as a means of introducing divers to different kinds of scuba experience and hopefully enticing them into continuing to dive. NAUI followed soon after for the same reason. At that time, it was the most advanced certification you could get without becoming an instructor, so the name made sense.
If you go out on your own and do a whole lot of diving before taking a course that was designed to introduce you to different kinds of diving, you probably won't learn much.