AOW for Experienced Divers: An Open Letter to PADI

[dytis-sm]

On the value of logbooks, I doubt that an inexperienced diver will fill his/hers up (or loan their computer to someone else to log dives) just to make up for deficiencies in their diving capabilities. Although the AOW card sets a standard that one has met, that does not make that person an "Advanced Diver" in the sense of a challenging dive. So a peek at one's logbook should worth something...

As to the value of a card, just recently I applied for a volunteer diver position that required rescue certification and the only use of the certification card was to get permission to enter the pool and demonstrate rescue skills... The point? That card does not mean much in terms of skill... and a checkout dive is probably the only way one can tell what a diver is capable of.

 

[drrich2]

Sometimes the different threads active on ScubaBoard at a given time intrigue me with the irony. Here we have an OW diver frustrated with the limitations imposed on him by dive charters because he 'only' has an OW cert.

Elsewhere on the forum, I've been following a thread where there seems to be some sentiment that PADI OW is so lousy that it should be changed to 'PADI Resort Diver' and graduates only allowed to dive under professional supervision.

Quick pot stirring suggestion to the mod.s; how about merging this thread and that one?

Richard.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I wonder what you would have thought if the OP had written the following instead:

Dear Harvard University:

Over the past decades, I have read a lot of books and had a lot of experiences that provided me with much more information than a typical college degree. I find, though, that I am unable to get the kind of job for which I am qualified because for some reason businesses are requiring a college diploma. I also find that it matters what college provides the diploma, and Harvard seems to do well in that category. I therefore suggest that Harvard have a program that provides a Harvard degree to anyone who can provide a list of books read that are equivalent to a college degree and who can pass a single check out test covering key concepts in those books. I believe that should cost $100.

PS: I notice that a lot of your recent graduates really, really suck compared to me. You should do something about that.​

Looks like that may have been working for a while now at Harvard...

Honorary Degrees | Harvard University

Some honorary degree recipients

Year	Recipient	Degree
1753	Benjamin Franklin	A.M.
1776	George Washington	LL.D.
1781	John Adams	LL.D.
1787	Thomas Jefferson	LL.D.
1792	Samuel Adams	LL.D.
1822	John Quincy Adams	LL.D.
1832	Washington Irving	LL.D.
1833	Andrew Jackson	LL.D.
1852	Alexis Charles Henri de Tocqueville	LL.D.
1859	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	LL.D.
1866	Ralph Waldo Emerson	LL.D.
1872	Ulysses S. Grant	LL.D.
1896	Booker T. Washington	A.M.
1905	William Howard Taft	LL.D.
1907	Woodrow Wilson	LL.D.
1916	John Singer Sargent	Art.D.
1917	Herbert Hoover	LL.D.
1919	Theodore Roosevelt	A.M.
1929	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	LL.D.
1935	Albert Einstein	S.D.
1937	Robert Frost	Litt.D.
1938	Walt Disney	A.M.
1940	Carl Sandburg	Litt.D.
1943	Winston Churchill	LL.D.
1946	Dwight Eisenhower	LL.D.
1947	George Marshall	LL.D.
1951	Thornton Wilder	Litt.D.
1956	John F. Kennedy	LL.D.
1961	Aaron Copland	Mus.D.
1966	Martha Graham	Art.D.
1967	Leonard Bernstein	Mus.D.
1968	Mohammad Reza Pahlavi	LL.D.
1972	Saul Bellow	Litt.D.
1973	Georgia O’Keeffe	Art.D.
1973	Robert Penn Warren	Litt.D.
1974	Mstislav L. Rostropovich	Mus.D.
1974	Beverly Sills	Mus.D.
1976	Arthur Fiedler	Art.D.
1977	Barbara Jordan	LL.D.
1977	Eudora Welty	Litt.D.
1978	John Cheever	Litt.D.
1978	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Litt.D.
1979	Desmond Tutu	LL.D.
1980	Octavio Paz	Litt.D.
1981	Ansel Adams	Art.D.
1981	Leontyne Price	Art.D.
1982	Mother Teresa	LL.D.
1982	Tennessee Williams	Litt.D.
1983	Carlos Fuentes	LL.D.
1984	Juan Carlos I	LL.D.
1984	Benny Goodman	Mus.D.
1985	Louise Nevelson	Art.D.
1986	Lord Carrington	LL.D.
1986	Itzhak Perlman	Mus.D.
1987	Thomas P. O’Neill Jr.	LL.D.
1988	Jessye Norman	Mus.D.
1988	Oscar Arias Sánchez	LL.D.
1989	Benazir Bhutto	LL.D.
1989	Toni Morrison	LL.D.
1990	Ella Fitzgerald	Mus.D.
1990	Stephen W. Hawking	S.D.
1990	Helmut Kohl	LL.D.
1991	Yo-Yo Ma	Mus.D.
1991	Eduard Shevardnadze	LL.D.
1992	Gro Harlem Brundtland	LL.D.
1992	Isaac Stern	Mus.D.
1993	Colin Powell	LL.D.
1993	Ravi Shankar	Art.D.
1994	Albert Gore Jr.	LL.D.
1995	Vaclav Havel	LL.D.
1997	Quincy Jones	Mus.D.
1997	John Rawls	LL.D.
1998	Gertrude B. Elion	S.D.
1998	Nelson Mandela	LL.D. (awarded during a special convocation in September)
1999	Julia Kristeva	LL.D.
1999	Herbert Block	Art.D.
2000	Seiji Ozawa	Mus.D.
2001	John Ashbery	Litt.D.
2000	Nicolaas Bloembergen	S.D.
2001	Jürgen Habermas	LL.D.
2001	Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	LL.D.
2002	Daniel Patrick Moynihan	LL.D.
2002	Neil L. Rudenstine	LL.D.
2002	Ruth J. Simmons	LL.D.
2003	Philip Roth	Litt.D.
2003	Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon	LL.D.
2004	Kofi Annan	LL.D.
2004	Margaret Atwood	Litt.D.
2004	Shirley M. Tilghman	LL.D.
2004	Edward O. Wilson	S.D.
2005	D. Ronald Daniel	LL.D.
2005	John Lithgow	Art.D.
2005	Charles M. Vest	LL.D.
2006	Sir Michael Atiyah, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Philip E. Converse, Philippe de Montebello, Shirley Ann Jackson, Jim Lehrer, Robert P. Moses, Norman F. Ramsey, Leo Steinberg	various
2007	Daniel Aaron, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, William H. Gates III, Conrad K. Harper, William Felton ‘Bill’ Russell, Joan Wallach Scott, Robert Silvers, Lawrence H. Summers, Karen K. Uhlenbeck	various
2008	His Highness the Aga Khan, James P. Comer, Wen C. Fong, Eric R. Kandel, The Hon. Damon J. Keith, Gerda Lerner, John McCarthy, Janet Rowley, J.K. Rowling, Daniel C. Tosteson, Sen. Edward Kennedy	various
2009	Steven Chu, Pedro Almodóvar, Joan Didion, Wendy Doniger, Ronald Dworkin, Anthony S. Fauci, Sarah Hrdy, Robert Langer, Wynton Marsalis, Sidney Verba	various
2010	Thomas R. Cech, Renée C. Fox, Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Susan Lindquist, Thomas Nagel, David G. Nathan, The Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, Richard Serra, David H. Souter, Meryl Streep	various
2011	Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Plácido Domingo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dudley Herschbach, James R. Houghton, Rosalind Krauss, J.G.A. Pocock, David Satcher, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	various
2012	John Adams, K. Anthony Appiah, Dame Gillian Beer, Walter Kohn, Wendy Kopp, Hon. John Lewis, Mario Molina, Fareed Zakaria	various

 

[BVickery]

On the value of logbooks, I doubt that an inexperienced diver will fill his/hers up (or loan their computer to someone else to log dives) just to make up for deficiencies in their diving capabilities. Although the AOW card sets a standard that one has met, that does not make that person an "Advanced Diver" in the sense of a challenging dive. So a peek at one's logbook should worth something...

As to the value of a card, just recently I applied for a volunteer diver position that required rescue certification and the only use of the certification card was to get permission to enter the pool and demonstrate rescue skills... The point? That card does not mean much in terms of skill... and a checkout dive is probably the only way one can tell what a diver is capable of.

I wouldn't be so sure. Seems there was a Cave Diving Accident where 2 divers pretty much fudged their credentials and go themselves killed while diving a cave in FL. I don't know the full details, but in order to dive this spring you have to show things.

---------- Post added May 29th, 2013 at 07:48 PM ----------

Looks like that may have been working for a while now at Harvard...

Honorary Degrees | Harvard University

Some honorary degree recipients

Year	Recipient	Degree
1753	Benjamin Franklin	A.M.
1776	George Washington	LL.D.
1781	John Adams	LL.D.
1787	Thomas Jefferson	LL.D.
1792	Samuel Adams	LL.D.
1822	John Quincy Adams	LL.D.
1832	Washington Irving	LL.D.
1833	Andrew Jackson	LL.D.
1852	Alexis Charles Henri de Tocqueville	LL.D.
1859	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	LL.D.
1866	Ralph Waldo Emerson	LL.D.
1872	Ulysses S. Grant	LL.D.
1896	Booker T. Washington	A.M.
1905	William Howard Taft	LL.D.
1907	Woodrow Wilson	LL.D.
1916	John Singer Sargent	Art.D.
1917	Herbert Hoover	LL.D.
1919	Theodore Roosevelt	A.M.
1929	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	LL.D.
1935	Albert Einstein	S.D.
1937	Robert Frost	Litt.D.
1938	Walt Disney	A.M.
1940	Carl Sandburg	Litt.D.
1943	Winston Churchill	LL.D.
1946	Dwight Eisenhower	LL.D.
1947	George Marshall	LL.D.
1951	Thornton Wilder	Litt.D.
1956	John F. Kennedy	LL.D.
1961	Aaron Copland	Mus.D.
1966	Martha Graham	Art.D.
1967	Leonard Bernstein	Mus.D.
1968	Mohammad Reza Pahlavi	LL.D.
1972	Saul Bellow	Litt.D.
1973	Georgia O’Keeffe	Art.D.
1973	Robert Penn Warren	Litt.D.
1974	Mstislav L. Rostropovich	Mus.D.
1974	Beverly Sills	Mus.D.
1976	Arthur Fiedler	Art.D.
1977	Barbara Jordan	LL.D.
1977	Eudora Welty	Litt.D.
1978	John Cheever	Litt.D.
1978	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Litt.D.
1979	Desmond Tutu	LL.D.
1980	Octavio Paz	Litt.D.
1981	Ansel Adams	Art.D.
1981	Leontyne Price	Art.D.
1982	Mother Teresa	LL.D.
1982	Tennessee Williams	Litt.D.
1983	Carlos Fuentes	LL.D.
1984	Juan Carlos I	LL.D.
1984	Benny Goodman	Mus.D.
1985	Louise Nevelson	Art.D.
1986	Lord Carrington	LL.D.
1986	Itzhak Perlman	Mus.D.
1987	Thomas P. O’Neill Jr.	LL.D.
1988	Jessye Norman	Mus.D.
1988	Oscar Arias Sánchez	LL.D.
1989	Benazir Bhutto	LL.D.
1989	Toni Morrison	LL.D.
1990	Ella Fitzgerald	Mus.D.
1990	Stephen W. Hawking	S.D.
1990	Helmut Kohl	LL.D.
1991	Yo-Yo Ma	Mus.D.
1991	Eduard Shevardnadze	LL.D.
1992	Gro Harlem Brundtland	LL.D.
1992	Isaac Stern	Mus.D.
1993	Colin Powell	LL.D.
1993	Ravi Shankar	Art.D.
1994	Albert Gore Jr.	LL.D.
1995	Vaclav Havel	LL.D.
1997	Quincy Jones	Mus.D.
1997	John Rawls	LL.D.
1998	Gertrude B. Elion	S.D.
1998	Nelson Mandela	LL.D. (awarded during a special convocation in September)
1999	Julia Kristeva	LL.D.
1999	Herbert Block	Art.D.
2000	Seiji Ozawa	Mus.D.
2001	John Ashbery	Litt.D.
2000	Nicolaas Bloembergen	S.D.
2001	Jürgen Habermas	LL.D.
2001	Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	LL.D.
2002	Daniel Patrick Moynihan	LL.D.
2002	Neil L. Rudenstine	LL.D.
2002	Ruth J. Simmons	LL.D.
2003	Philip Roth	Litt.D.
2003	Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon	LL.D.
2004	Kofi Annan	LL.D.
2004	Margaret Atwood	Litt.D.
2004	Shirley M. Tilghman	LL.D.
2004	Edward O. Wilson	S.D.
2005	D. Ronald Daniel	LL.D.
2005	John Lithgow	Art.D.
2005	Charles M. Vest	LL.D.
2006	Sir Michael Atiyah, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Philip E. Converse, Philippe de Montebello, Shirley Ann Jackson, Jim Lehrer, Robert P. Moses, Norman F. Ramsey, Leo Steinberg	various
2007	Daniel Aaron, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, William H. Gates III, Conrad K. Harper, William Felton ‘Bill’ Russell, Joan Wallach Scott, Robert Silvers, Lawrence H. Summers, Karen K. Uhlenbeck	various
2008	His Highness the Aga Khan, James P. Comer, Wen C. Fong, Eric R. Kandel, The Hon. Damon J. Keith, Gerda Lerner, John McCarthy, Janet Rowley, J.K. Rowling, Daniel C. Tosteson, Sen. Edward Kennedy	various
2009	Steven Chu, Pedro Almodóvar, Joan Didion, Wendy Doniger, Ronald Dworkin, Anthony S. Fauci, Sarah Hrdy, Robert Langer, Wynton Marsalis, Sidney Verba	various
2010	Thomas R. Cech, Renée C. Fox, Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Susan Lindquist, Thomas Nagel, David G. Nathan, The Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, Richard Serra, David H. Souter, Meryl Streep	various
2011	Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Plácido Domingo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dudley Herschbach, James R. Houghton, Rosalind Krauss, J.G.A. Pocock, David Satcher, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	various
2012	John Adams, K. Anthony Appiah, Dame Gillian Beer, Walter Kohn, Wendy Kopp, Hon. John Lewis, Mario Molina, Fareed Zakaria	various

OMG, Drunk Ted finally got his Harvard degree (he was thrown out for cheating).

 

[Scott]

Looks like that may have been working for a while now at Harvard...

Honorary Degrees | Harvard University

Some honorary degree recipients

I wonder what happened in 2006, did Harvard lower their standards for achieving an honorary degree?
Harvard, the honorary degree mill. < Notice winking smiley, no offense intended to Harvard grads.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I wonder what happened in 2006, did Harvard lower their standards for achieving an honorary degree?
Harvard, the honorary degree mill. < Notice winking smiley, no offense intended to Harvard grads.

2006.. that was the year Boulder John started teaching his persuasive writing class (I think).

 

[chrpai]

Dear Harvard University:

Over the past decades, I have read a lot of books and had a lot of experiences that provided me with much more information than a typical college degree. I find, though, that I am unable to get the kind of job for which I am qualified because for some reason businesses are requiring a college diploma. I also find that it matters what college provides the diploma, and Harvard seems to do well in that category. I therefore suggest that Harvard have a program that provides a Harvard degree to anyone who can provide a list of books read that are equivalent to a college degree and who can pass a single check out test covering key concepts in those books. I believe that should cost $100.

PS: I notice that a lot of your recent graduates really, really suck compared to me. You should do something about that.​

ROFLMAO

John, do you really think a degree is that important? I've never wasted a single dollar in the "higher education" scam and yet I've had a highly successful career. I was making six figures within 4 years of starting and in 17 years I've never been on the bench. Why? Because most degree programs aren't actually "education" rather they are "training". Employers care about your skills and experience... not the paper on the wall.

Oh, and colleges do offer honorary degrees. But, like PADI, they typically expect something in return...

 

[boulderjohn]

I am really sorry my point was completely lost on some people, but I think a lot of other people got it.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

It's like giving money away. Why would they do that?

Because if they expect to be treated as a legitimate gatekeeper for recreational diving certification, making money cannot be their sole priority.

Scuba can cost a lot for gear, gas, training, and all the people you pay to take you diving -- but at the end of the day it isn't a 'pay to play' activity. At least in the US I'm not aware of any statute that says you need AOW or any other bought license to go dive, and the shops that require it will only do so as long as the agencies maintain some veneer of 'we issue this card because we taught you something new.'

Once it becomes 'you have to pay this much to be allowed to have X level card regardless of what you know', divers have every right to start printing their own fake AOW cards.

 

[chrpai]

I am really sorry my point was completely lost on some people, but I think a lot of other people got it.

No. Your "point" assumed two falsehoods. That 1) people like me can't find jobs and 2) that companies care.