Cert diver never took a course

[sharpenu]

I never took a course all the way to master diver. I bought the books, and then my LDS had me take the written exams, and if I got a 90% on it, I just did the checkouts. I do quite a few dives with them and the instructors were happy with my skills.

My LDS is now under a new owner and they will no longer do this for me. Since I just don't have the time or inclination to sit through long classes, I don't take classes any more. Other than card collecting, I don't see the point.

 

[MB]

Hmmm, well I should have said that when I took the course ...

Man if I had a dollar for every one of my memory lapses, and for every time I had to say, "Oh did they change that?" Maybe I'll have better luck with a lottery ticket! :sorry19z:

 

[scubapro50]

not so crazy ... I once knew a SSI instructor who taught a student who couldn't swim how to dive ... loaded him up with weights to go down and made "damn" sure he knew how to operate the power inflate button on his BC to go up.

 

[jamiep3]

I haven't seen it myself, but a friend of mine had the PADI BOW on CD ROM. Did the whole class part interactively, I believe it printed out the knowledge reviews at the end of each chapter. I do know that his instructor reviewed all the material with him prior to check out dives.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

It's how the world learns to dive.

 

[scubapro50]

INSTANT DIVER ....... just add warm water ?

 

[mrobinson]

I don't have the standards in front of me but doesn't PADI require some classroom and knowledge reveiws for the AOW? (Don't get me wrong, I would still prefer a test and peak performance bouyance as requirements since knowledge reviews are not sufficent, IMHO)

 

[paulwlee]

Actually, she must have done the pool sessions, as there is no substitute for the skills part of the course.

As for not having to sit down inside the classroom for the lecture, I think that's a great thing for many people. I personally feel that almost all of the classroom lectures I attended before graduate school were hugely inefficient compared to me just sitting down and reading the material for myself. (Not saying that it was worthless, it was, as there are other aspects of school other than academics.)

 

[Far_X]

I have to agree with some of the people here. The PADI books are quite straightforward and having to go to the classes and hear the instructor just basically go through the same stuff is monotonous. When it comes to the tables, I have noticed that a few of them keep getting them wrong I attended a Nitrox class, had a date so couldn't stay for the exam and got around to taking the exam a month later with no studying in between. I think I got four questions wrong. So the question should be, do the students demonstrate their understanding when they do the dives or when they luckily guess a multiple choice answer? I have no problem with home study. If you don't understand it, I doubt you will pass even a multiple choice as obvious as PADI's maybe. Did I answer the right question here? LOL

 

[friscuba]

I recently learned that a friend of mine, who is OW certified, nitrox certified, and has completed AOW checkout dives (but no class time) never took the actual class to get certified. She took a resort course while on a cruise, came home, watched a video, took the test, and did her checkouts. Is this common?

Are you sure they didn't read a book or watch a CD/DVD and fill out knowledge reviews, as well as have some pool time?

It is quite common to obtain a certification without lecture time these days, but self study is involved, knowledge review (and maybe quizzes/tests depending on the agency) with an instructor is involved, pool or confined water time is involved, which is then followed by the checkout dives.

later,