Most Expedient Route to DM

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To assure getting paid (modestly) in Diving, you would need to become an Instructor, a diesel mechanic, a web developer and a boat captain. Those qualifications would likely get you hired almost anywhere. There are lots of DMs and AIs and very few get paid more than a very low wage plus tips. The best reason for getting DM/AI certs is that you enjoy the journey: you like learning new stuff and you're good with helping others learn. The most significant part of your compensation would be getting the shop discount on gear. But as only an Open Water diver, you are a long way from even knowing if you really like the sport. Get some more dives in and talk to as many people in the shops and on the boats as you can.

The OP would be working at a dive shop in Michigan. He’d probably not be making very much at all.
 
Now that you are probably convinced that being a DM or AI or I is not for the money, let's look at the positives.
Helping someone learn to dive is awesome; the look on their face when they actually learn how to do something, and when they return from a dive, is priceless.
Being a DM is just different part of the hobby. Yes, you may get more water time, yes you may get some discounts on purchases, but those are not the reasons to be a DM. The best DMs are those that relate to the people they are diving with, and help them learn faster and better and have more fun. the money is a bonus, and will likely never be enough to pay for all the training.

And the best DMs are those that were already experienced, competent, confident divers. Becoming a DM teaches you very little about diving; that comes from diving and experience and time.
 
I would recommend against becomming a Divemaster. There is nothing about the course in and of itself that will make you a better diver. The expectation is that you arrive at the table with a refined skillset. Becoming certified as a DM means you will have an annual professional liability insurance bill plus you will have the cash outlay of maintaining CPR and First Aid credentials as well. There are also concerns when diving for fun, because things you might do can easily and inadvertently cause you to cross the line from being just a buddy to diving as Pro which could open you up to unwanted liability issues should your partner do something stupid and get hurt.

As others have stated, the return on investment is very low. You may find your self having to invest in gear based on the demands of the shop or instructors you work with. Shops often want those working under their umbrella to represent the gear they sell...good if you already have that gear, not so good if you have to outlay cash for gear you don't want or otherwise need.

Playing assistant to an instructor with a bunch of budding divers will give you more time in the water but whether that is considered quality dive time is based on how the shop/instructor teaches and what they will have you do while in the water.

My suggestion is to use your time to just dive more, that is the best way to become a better diver. Again there is nothing specific about the divemaster program that will make you a better diver.

All that said...my understanding is that under NAUI you will need the following certifications as pre-reqs for DM:
1. NAUI Open Water or equivalent
2. NAUI Rescue or equivalent
3. NAUI Nitrox or equivalent
4. NAUI Master Diver or equivalent

Unlike some of the other agencies out there where Master Diver is just a card they give you after collecting certain amount of experience, under NAUI the Master Diver certification is an actual course of instruction in and of itself with classroom, pool, and open water requirements. NAUI Master Diver was one of the most rewarding courses I have ever undertaken. The knowledge and skils required in this program are well above that of Divemaster under competing agencies.

But again, none of that is necessary to become a better diver, just go dive more and try to buddy with folks who have more refined skills than you believe you to have.

-Z
 
Pros:
More diving
Become a better diver-better buoyancy, SAC rate, skill confidence
Become a better buddy-rescue, O2/First Aid, self-sufficiency
Prerequisites for the diving I want to do- Esst. of Tech/ANDP
Not Soul-Crushing Job (I'd rather jump off a bridge than work at Wallyworld again)

Cons:
CASH
TIME
Pros:
maybe
no
no
not a pre-req for any recreational or tech diving
maybe

Cons:
yes
yes
 
I would recommend against becomming a Divemaster. There is nothing about the course in and of itself that will make you a better diver. The expectation is that you arrive at the table with a refined skillset. Becoming certified as a DM means you will have an annual professional liability insurance bill plus you will have the cash outlay of maintaining CPR and First Aid credentials as well. There are also concerns when diving for fun, because things you might do can easily and inadvertently cause you to cross the line from being just a buddy to diving as Pro which could open you up to unwanted liability issues should your partner do something stupid and get hurt.

As others have stated, the return on investment is very low. You may find your self having to invest in gear based on the demands of the shop or instructors you work with. Shops often want those working under their umbrella to represent the gear they sell...good if you already have that gear, not so good if you have to outlay cash for gear you don't want or otherwise need.

Playing assistant to an instructor with a bunch of budding divers will give you more time in the water but whether that is considered quality dive time is based on how the shop/instructor teaches and what they will have you do while in the water.

My suggestion is to use your time to just dive more, that is the best way to become a better diver. Again there is nothing specific about the divemaster program that will make you a better diver.

All that said...my understanding is that under NAUI you will need the following certifications as pre-reqs for DM:
1. NAUI Open Water or equivalent
2. NAUI Rescue or equivalent
3. NAUI Nitrox or equivalent
4. NAUI Master Diver or equivalent

Unlike some of the other agencies out there where Master Diver is just a card they give you after collecting certain amount of experience, under NAUI the Master Diver certification is an actual course of instruction in and of itself with classroom, pool, and open water requirements. NAUI Master Diver was one of the most rewarding courses I have ever undertaken. The knowledge and skils required in this program are well above that of Divemaster under competing agencies.

But again, none of that is necessary to become a better diver, just go dive more and try to buddy with folks who have more refined skills than you believe you to have.

-Z
Agree with you about just buddying with more experienced divers and recommended that to students back when I was a working DM.
The only argument saying that a DM course will improve your diving is that you must perform the skills to demonstration quality, but that has been discussed a few times over the years.
I took the PADI DM course over a decade ago, just before it was revised. The knowledge and skills seemed very plentyfull to me (can't comment on the revised course). What are the skills & knowledge in the NAUI MSD course that are well above the PADI DM course (sorry, I know that has been discussed before as well)?
 
Agree with you about just buddying with more experienced divers and recommended that to students back when I was a working DM.
The only argument saying that a DM course will improve your diving is that you must perform the skills to demonstration quality, but that has been discussed a few times over the years.
I took the PADI DM course over a decade ago, just before it was revised. The knowledge and skills seemed very plentyfull to me (can't comment on the revised course). What are the skills & knowledge in the NAUI MSD course that are well above the PADI DM course (sorry, I know that has been discussed before as well)?

For the NAUI MSD, in the course I took, it covered just about all the skills required from the DM course I took, plus there was a bunch of apnea work, general skills work in the pool, rescue scenarios, search and recovery scenarios, limited visibility work, a good deal of navigation, plus a boatload of classroom stuff. I had a great and demanding instructor, not to say that I didn't have an equally great instructor for DM too, but I just felt the NAUI MSD was a more demanding program all around.

The whole issue of having demonstration quality skills for DM is that they are teaching elements and are exaggerated, the expectation is that the a DM candidate has the basic skills down pat and then some, so learning how to exaggerate a skill for demonstration purposes may make some better at demoing a skill but it does not make one a better diver overall. All the "skills" a PADI DM is required to master to demonstration quality are all skills relevant to teaching basic open water students...one should expect that a DM candidate has these skills in their arsenal and can properly execute them, the DM course should only teach and reinforce how to explain and demonstrate them to students.

Perhaps it is just my opinion but when someone signs up for a DM course, they are stating they are ready to be a professional...they are stating that they believe their skill set is of high enough caliber that they should be considered as a candidate for this training course....the focus of the course is not about developing the candidates skills as a diver, it is designed to teach how to manage things above and below the surface. The course tests a bunch of stuff and if a candidate is deficient in an area they should go dive more and work on brushing up on those things that they had issues with. For instance, navigation is an important skill for DM to have, but the DM course is not where you learn navigation, it is where your navigation skills are put to the test. If one has issues with navigating in various conditions underwater then that candidate needs to go work on that to improve and comeback to their DM instructor to be challenged/tested again. PADI offers a navigation specialty certification course, the DM candidate is expected to know and understand and be able to execute the basic skills taught in that course and then go work on them to refine and build on that experience BEFORE they raise their hand and say they are ready to be a divemaster....the DM course should then evaluate their skill/acumen and provide feedback on where they are deficient, then the candidate should be able to take that feedback and digest it and apply while working outside the context of the DM course to raise their skill level to a professional caliber. Otherwise a DM course is just pumping out monkeys that have mediocre diving skills but can demonstrate stuff really well. There are plenty of monkeys in the water already.

-Z

-Z
 
Demonstrating skills on the knees doesn't improve buoyancy.

But it makes me a platinum course director with hand signals to rival a magician at a kids’ magic show.

I’m becoming surly.

Maybe I should take a break from SB.
 
The OP would be working at a dive shop in Michigan. He’d probably not be making very much at all.
This. The DMs I know around here all do it because they enjoy it, not because they make any money at it. They all have regular day jobs to pay the bills.

To the OP - and I say this as someone who is not a DM, so take it for what it's worth - I would suggest you put thoughts of doing a DMC aside for the time being and just work on your own diving and training progression. Dive a lot. Take some additional training if you like. Rescue diver is a really great course, and there are several other certifications that are worth it (nitrox, for example). But don't think of becoming a DM as a great way to make money and certainly don't think of it as a great way to become a better diver, because neither of those things are necessarily true. Dive as much as you can for a few years and then see if you feel the same way. That way, if you decide to start your DM training, you will already be a better diver and will have a much better understanding of the pay-offs and trade-offs.
 
Apologies for saying what some others have said, just in a different format. My comments inline:

Pros:
More diving

As a DM trainee, you may not be given a whole lot of real diving tasks. Helping out in a pool or otherwise holding the hands of student divers won't push your skills envelope toward your stated goal of technical diving. Instead of using a DM course as a way to get in more diving, I would recommend finding some buddies and using your limited time and money to do more "real" dives.
Become a better diver-better buoyancy, SAC rate, skill confidence

You would learn these skills better by, in addition to just diving as noted above, taking some specific courses. I don't know about NAUI, but I know PADI has the Peak Performance Buoyancy course. Perhaps better yet, and although not well publicized or widely available, you may be able to find something like a "scuba boot camp" offered by an instructor on an individual basis. Or, after getting in some "real" dives as mentioned above, you might be able to use Intro to Tech as a course to further hone your buoyancy, trim, propulsion and related skills (whether an instructor views ITT as a remedial course or expects your skills to already be very good may depend on the instructor's individual philosophy). GUE's Fundamentals course would fit your needs but is even more expensive.

Become a better buddy-rescue, O2/First Aid, self-sufficiency

Take the Rescue course or whatever NAUI or other agency calls it. I doubt that a dive shop will take you on as a DM trainee if you have not even gotten that far on the ladder of courses. If a shop offers to give you other courses "for free" as part of a long-term internship program, they're going to expect you to work--probably harder than you would have at Wally World.

Prerequisites for the diving I want to do- Esst. of Tech/ANDP

To reiterate, my advice would be to just take the courses that teach those prerequisites, and do a lot of quality diving between courses. The skills you learn as as a DM do not translate perfectly to the skills you need as a technical diver. I am not an instructor, but I have heard tales of experienced DMs and even OW instructors having to re-learn lots of skills when they decided to get into tech diving. Really, they could be considered two quite different paths in diving.

Cons:
CASH

Cost is a HUGE con for the path I propose above. However, if you consider how much money you might spend being a DM and perhaps not becoming as skilled a diver as you could have, it might not be that great a difference.


Regardless of what path you take, if you don't put in the time you will not be the kind of diver your are describing as your goal. Maybe the best solution is to wait until you have more time and money and, in the meantime, just do as much decent diving as your time and money allow. When I was in my 20s I would have loved to have gotten as deep into diving as I am now, but I didn't have the time or money.
 
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