Considering Commercial Diving

[Minion_Diver]

I am in college and starting to think that it is not for me and I dont want to keep wasting my money on college. I have been looking at going to a commercial dive school and getting my training. I have always been the person who is working on something and have good mechanical skills and thought about applying them to the underwater world. I have been looking at the different schools and was trying to weigh which one is the best to go to. Im posting this out here to get some guidance on which school to go to and what all do i have to have in order to get accepting into a diving program.

 

[chrisski]

Finish college first , then get your dive certs. It'll be icing on the cake. Especially if you are going for engineering or something technical. Alternatively take that college money and apply it to welding school. If you've no felonies you'll stay busy in the nuclear/ inland field. You'll be much more marketable with any other qualifications than just dive certs. Good luck.

 

[warmwaterturner]

Got to agree with chrisski. My kid just finished CDS after costing about $25,000.00. for 6 months of training. He did not come out with any diving certification. He has all the underwater welding certs and various other things that will get him a job as a tender for about the first year. Shop around and ask a LOT of questions. He was drawn to New Jersey for a school because they offered remote vehicle training which turned out to be a joke! By the way - he has been looking for employment since graduating in November.

 

[Darol]

$25 grand, Holy $hit.:depressed:

 

[muddiver]

If you don't want to finish college than go talk to an Army recruiter, you'll have a job that pays and you won't get laid off.

The cheapest commercial diving school around is the community college in Louisiana called Youngs Memorial. In state resident tuition is around $1000.00 last I heard.

The best school in the U.S. is Santa Barbara City College. If you can afford the rent in that city, go the full two years and finish the Associates in Marine Technology.

The diving industry is slow right now and will probably not pick up until either summer (probably only slightly) or until the new government agency in charge of offshore oil production mandates ans inforces the inspection and refurbishment of all the existing oils lines from the oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

What were you studying in college? Are you actually in a four year college program, or just some jr. college?

You are going to have to pay your dues one way or the other. In commercial diving you are going to get paid the going laboer rate (was $12 an hour last I heard) and you will get treated like a complete moron. As a college graduate you will actually make a living and possably have a job with medical and other benifits. And still get treated like a complete "know-nothing".

 

[SurDo2]

Don't do it...

 

[Thalassamania]

Get your degree (preferably in engineering with some non-destructive testing courses), do NROTC, let the US Navy teach you to dive, then enter the field.