A day in the life!

[pidgiepoo]

Kudos to you for teaching the correct way to new students. Wish I would have had such indepth/thorough training. You get a gold star !

 

[rje634]

Having a hard time today. I have written and erased this post several times so far. I'm not quite sure how to address my feelings about my day, but I think I might have found an approach that will work, here goes.

To start, let me tell you that there are instructors out here that really do care! We are trying our best each and every day. Sure we make mistakes, we try to learn from them, and we ultimately have your best interest at heart. That having been said......................

Please people, hold your instructors accountable. It is hard, because humans don't know what we don't know. We hire an expert to teach us and have to trust that they are doing right by us. So a little advice. If you are dealing with a PADI instructor, they have slates. Every confined water session, and open water session has a slate that tells them what to do and how to do it. They should be sitting down with you both before and after each session and going over the slate point by point. THERE ARE NO OPTIONAL PIECES!!! If they don't go through the slates with you, or are skipping lines on it, ASK THEM WHY!!!! Keep track of your training, and answer the training survey that PADI sends you as honestly as possible. If they don't send you one, call them at 1800 729-7235 and ask for one. At a minimum, ask for a copy of your training record and make sure you did everything that is on it. Did you do the skin diving portion of the course??? No, why not??? Did you do the controlled emergency swimming ascent up a rope??? No, why not?

ask please!

p.s. my new students are doing great! They are enthusiastic, well prepared, and I believe will be excellent divers.

Sounds like a bad day with some referral dives...
Sorry to hear that.

 

[TSandM]

Going back to the kids you certified as Scuba Divers -- my husband has faced the same issue, and used the same strategy. It has worked very well, and some of the kids have eventually gone on to finish their open water certification. Sometimes they need more time; sometimes they need to grow up. Kudos to you for recognizing their lack of readiness!

 

[ezzy_67]

Wonderful thread and great insights. Keep them coming!

 

[blue steal]

Mat I am enjoying your "A day in the life!". Thanks.

 

[baystr]

Good on you Matt............cutting corners is never the best in the long run!

 

[Aquabear]

mjatkins,
Thanks for letting us know what its like a day in the life. I am a returning adult in college to finish my BA/MA in teaching and had been contemplating going pro to teach scuba not for the donald trump money but for the experience, the joy in teaching and maybe just maybe out there I can help make a difference or change a kids life (or adult)around for the better just because I was given a second chance at life and I want to pay it forward. But back on topic thank you for opening up - as much as possible and letting us in we all appreciate it because opening a door is much easier than opeing your soul. Thanks again and Namaste.

 

[mjatkins]

Yesterday was a good day at work, I spent the morning and first part of the afternoon with my new open water students, then I took out a twilight/night dive at 3:30. My new open water students are doing great! They are well prepared and working hard. We had started out the first day with open water dive number 1. We essentially did a discover scuba experience including the skills from OW #1 then headed into the ocean to look at fish and get excited about the course. We spent the rest of the day working through confined water skills, then stopped for the evening. Yesterday we finished the confined sessions, the swim, float, and skin diving portions, then did open water dive number 2. They were two long days, but they are very enthusiastic. Tomorrow morning we will go through the "safety concepts" slide presentation, then do the knowledge reviews and exams. In the afternoon, we go out on the boat for open water numbers 3 and 4. Woohoo! They took today off to do a monkey tour on the mainland, so I was able to work today with a nice young couple from Vancouver Island. They had never been diving before, so we started with a discover scuba experience from shore. They loved it!! They loved it enough to sign up to go out with me on the afternoon boat. We had two great dives, one at Chankanaab shallows, and the other at Paradise reef. I really thought they did well and had a great time. I love it when it all goes the way it's supposed to.

 

[sharky60]

... We had two great dives, one at Chankanaab shallows, and the other at Paradise reef...

The "newbies" get some great dives and don't realize what they are getting.

Being a Coz long-timer and experienced diver, it's sometimes hard to get the "advanced" boat to do these 2 shallow dives, even for a second dive! Both are very nice, max bottom time dives, what a great start for a new diver's career.

Thanks for sharing Matt, I'm enjoying your posts very much!

 

[MMM]

Being a Coz long-timer and experienced diver, it's sometimes hard to get the "advanced" boat to do these 2 shallow dives, even for a second dive! Both are very nice, max bottom time dives, what a great start for a new diver's career.

I'm not so sure that the issue is getting the "advanced" boat to do these dives as much as it is that they are a long way from the southern sites. If the boat has to return divers to southern hotels, then they are having to burn a lot of gas. It seems that we do them more frequently when we've done our first dive up north or if we don't have divers on the boat at southern hotels.