Cheapest certificates in the world?

[primitivepete]

Divingjimi,
Good luck with your diving career.
Sounds like you know what you want and understand what its going to take.
Stick with it and the benefits will be worth it.

 

[bwerb]

primitivepete once bubbled...


I must say I do like the way some of you (post whores) attack so many Newbies.
Also I am not really a newbie at diving. (Just new to this PUBLIC forum.)
You have no clue as to my ability.
Nor do I know anything about you.
(Lets keep it that way, ok?)

Post whore...interesting term...please define...

Attack the newbie?...not really, just when the newbie jumps into the forums with the flame jets on full and the attitude to match.

So...since you've indicated that you are going to be around for a while...so we all know where you are coming from why don't you let us know some of your background. I would be very interested to know a little about your diving. Since we don't have a long history together, we don't have the pleasure of knowing from whence you came.

I'm a PNW diver as well as are many others on the board, welcome. We have a different perspective being cold water high current divers, where do you like to dive?

This is a great board...you'll actually find very little attitude and a whole lot of great advise and comaradarie, I hope you will be able to contribute.

 

[primitivepete]

"Post whore"- Do I really need to explain?

Howdy bwerb,
I noticed that we are in the same waters.
Was I flameing?????
Guess I got my feathers ruffeled early.
I am currently working on my DM.
Place's I dive?
All around the Puget Sound.
Mostly around Tacoma/ Seattle.
Hood canal also has some awesome spots.
Have not invaded your neck of the woods yet....
I will try hard to improve my people skills..
Pete

 

[roxy271]

T-bolt Diver once bubbled...
What do you expect when your first priority is "lowest price". One would think that you would be concerned about other things "like quality" first, then try to find a fair price.

Why should he care about Quality when most people who get into Diving anymore don't care about anything than price.
I work in a Dive Store at this time and when people call and ask about certification the ONLY question they ask is price.
There is no other question i get asked our price is average for the area.
Just once i would like someone to ask a question besides cost it may be an issue but it should not be the only one.

 

[bwerb]

you made me smile...welcome to the boards!

you don't need to explain, it was a little...well...rhetorical.

PNW has great diving...you really do need to come up across to visit us in the Great White North. There is so much to see and we can have some awesome visibility up here. I was in Victoria with 80 plus feet of vis, it get's up to well over 100' at some times of the year. Right now the top 30' suck...too much bloom, but if you go deeper the vis starts to open up at around 50-60'.

Good luck on you DM, let us know how it is going.

Brian

 

[GQMedic]

I've heard of a few of the "3 months crash course instructors" having some "issues" in the industry, I'm remaining optimistic about her endevors and think she'll have her stuff all glued together when she's done, She's made her sacrifices as have I for her venture at Halls. She's a pretty bright woman though, so I'm pretty well behind her all the way on it. Sure, I wish she stayed home and did her ITC here locally, but she really wanted to do this at Halls, it meant enough to her to come to me with it. Tomorrow, she gets her first batch of actual students to apply her orals on. I do wish she was not so "worked" as she barely had time to spend a minute and a half on the phone with me. Here's to 26 days left of her ITC. I will also say this, with knowing the person she is, I think she'll make a great instructor. As far as judging anyone's ability as an instructor, I'm (not taking anything away from my own efforts here) in my ITC and not an instructor at present. I won't be finished until late june, which is fine with me, I personally don't want to be "lobotomized" with brain strain! *chuckle*

Everyone here will know when she's back from Halls. I'll probably be crowing like a rooster here. Besides, I miss my favorite dive buddy.

-Dennis

So. Cal.

leadweight once bubbled...
Quite a few instructors are produced at schools in Florida where someone with an OW card shows up and 3 months later they leave as an instructor.

At that point they probably aren't any good, but that is what happens.

If they are lucky they will go to work for a dive shop somewhere who will make them assist more experienced instructors for 6 months or so. If they are really lucky the shop owner will be really picky and more or less retrain them.

Eventually, they will be fit to instruct.

Dont flip. I am not an instructor, but I consume their services. Students are quite qualified to rate the quality of their teachers.

Another aspect of this is that there is no (and correct me if I am wrong) basic educational requirement to become an instructor. I don't mean to say that a dive instructor needs a 4 year college degree to be effective, but something more than no minimum at all might be a good idea. I am hesitant to say what the standard should be, but in accord with many civil service jobs, military service would be an acceptable substitute for other formal education.

 

[Dectek]

roxy271 once bubbled...


I work in a Dive Store at this time and when people call and ask about certification the ONLY question they ask is price.
There is no other question i get asked our price is average for the area.

That is the only question they KNOW to ask and get an Answer.
They ask how much....you say $200.
They ask" Are your instructors any good?" You say: "the best"

You are not going to say: They suck but we are the only game in town!
Does the produce man stand in the market yelling OLD fruit?

As far as any other questions....... They are new to the under water world and don't know enough to ask any other questions besides " Have you seen any sharks? and Do you take mastercard?

Hey primitivepete....click HERE it is free and Very useful

 

[primitivepete]

Ha ha ha,
Thanks dectek. I will use it.

 

[steeldiver]

OK so we see past your request to become a cheap diver and want to become a dive leader and still have some cash to spare.
The best meathod is to choose the agencies with the cheapest instution fee,s however this might restrict you when you seek employment in the diving industry.
Or you can choose a country where your rate of exchange is say 10-1,then you get top instruction, a dive holiday and plenty of travle experience to boot.

 

[DivingJimi]

Ok Thanks a lot to those of you who came with some constructive arguements.
You didn´t succeed in scaring me off the 6 months course but you did open my mind a little bit more.
I am not going from nothing to instructor since I have been diving for a year but I know that is still not much.
I don´t expect that the diving industry will let me in at once with open arms but I just hope that some dive shop will be kind enough to let me start off slow with "shop-duty" or maybe as a divemaster.

I will hang around in this forum some more since there seem to be "some" nice people here who knows what they are talking about.

Is there no such thing as a "Non-Flamers Guild" or similar here where so I don´t have to read useless arguements like "hey you spelled that word wrong"?

Oh well I drop it and just hope you all the best. See you around.