Twiddles
Contributor
I am a little confused by some of the course offering by PADI and presumably other programs. A few that come to mind would be boat diver, night diver, naturalist diver etc. The reason for my confusion is the cost to do these dives and the prerequisite of a certain number of "specialty" dives before you can move "up" the chain.
A number of these "specialty" dives are done during AOW or one of the other courses with PADI and yet you have to pay for that one extra dive that gets you the certification or that little bit of extra instruction that gets you the same.
Instructors on this board are always suggesting that this cert or that cert should be done to help improve on this or that and frankly it feels like the diver is being hustled. Several of these specialty courses could and SHOULD be combined into one educational dive program. The only real reason for not doing so is so that somebody (wether it be dive shop or dive instructor) wants to make more money...
The concept of to much information over to little time comes to mind but really for some of these specialty courses the majority of the requirement really falls on the student to learn the book work, the dives could easily be incorporated into say the AOW weekend.
It truly is my belief that this type of instruction endangers divers lives. You make people take courses seperately that should already be included in instruction already paid for, so you can make more money. If the student cant afford to pay for all these "specialties" they basically take their chances on there own because you didnt get your dollar. In addition it places rediculous course requirements on people who might want to become dive masters or asst instructors but dont have thousands of additional dollars to spend on superfulous class "specialties".
Diver cost to date:
My classes 0W $425, A0W $125.00, Altitude $125.00 Gear to do what I have been taught $2000 = $2675.00 for a total of 12 dives (not including CERT cards...)
Wifes Classes and gear same
Sons classes same x (2) gear basics $275.00 fins, mask, yada yada
Total to teach a family of four to dive and equip two of them with mid to low range gear $7000 Dollars yea um okay.....
You want more qualified divers?? Stop taking all your students to the bank at every opportunity.
A number of these "specialty" dives are done during AOW or one of the other courses with PADI and yet you have to pay for that one extra dive that gets you the certification or that little bit of extra instruction that gets you the same.
Instructors on this board are always suggesting that this cert or that cert should be done to help improve on this or that and frankly it feels like the diver is being hustled. Several of these specialty courses could and SHOULD be combined into one educational dive program. The only real reason for not doing so is so that somebody (wether it be dive shop or dive instructor) wants to make more money...
The concept of to much information over to little time comes to mind but really for some of these specialty courses the majority of the requirement really falls on the student to learn the book work, the dives could easily be incorporated into say the AOW weekend.
It truly is my belief that this type of instruction endangers divers lives. You make people take courses seperately that should already be included in instruction already paid for, so you can make more money. If the student cant afford to pay for all these "specialties" they basically take their chances on there own because you didnt get your dollar. In addition it places rediculous course requirements on people who might want to become dive masters or asst instructors but dont have thousands of additional dollars to spend on superfulous class "specialties".
Diver cost to date:
My classes 0W $425, A0W $125.00, Altitude $125.00 Gear to do what I have been taught $2000 = $2675.00 for a total of 12 dives (not including CERT cards...)
Wifes Classes and gear same
Sons classes same x (2) gear basics $275.00 fins, mask, yada yada
Total to teach a family of four to dive and equip two of them with mid to low range gear $7000 Dollars yea um okay.....
You want more qualified divers?? Stop taking all your students to the bank at every opportunity.