Graduated from PADI Diapers to TDI Pullups

[scrane]

As far as I'm concerned a certification is just a ticket to dive. Many new divers have a lot of complaints either about their instruction or their first few diving experiences. I would hope that these negative feelings will be tempered by time and experience. It's not like regular readers of SB haven't heard stories like yours quite a few times.
Go with the flow.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

As far as I'm concerned a certification is just a ticket to dive. Many new divers have a lot of complaints either about their instruction or their first few diving experiences. I would hope that these negative feelings will be tempered by time and experience. It's not like regular readers of SB haven't heard stories like yours quite a few times.
Go with the flow.

The issue is that the WRSTC guidelines are often not met. For example, students should be comfortable with going diving with their fellow students in similar conditions to which they were trained. Sadly, this is rarely the case. In my region, new divers are encouraged to join dive clubs to join more experienced divers. I think this is because dive planning materials of all major agencies are grossly inadequate. Hence I wrote the attached document on dive planning.

There's the whole debate about on the knees versus neutrally buoyant. Those taught properly do not express any negative feelings. Many who were taught improperly, are completely justified in doing so. Substandard open water courses unfortunately are the norm. I will admit that when I first started teaching, I was checking boxes. Mastery was student didn't drown completing skill. I was trained that this was meeting the performance requirements. Something bugged me about it, and with my time spent on social media, I realized the common case was substandard. And I changed the way I taught. My retention rates also changed as a result. What a surprise! Well trained open water divers are more likely to keep diving.

My negative feelings towards the system under which I was trained has only increased, as I feel that the scuba industry is full of snake oil salesmen. Anything for a quick profit.

 

[NothingClever]

Thanks, scrane. I did just that...went with the flow and tagged along with other PADI instructors at the dive resort on their instructional and personal dives. I had 30 dives, quite a few down to 30m, before my instructor administered my BOW exam. I think I had close to 40 dives by the time I received my BOW c-card a few weeks later. One of my dive buddies remarked that with only 10 more dives I would have punched one of the requirements to start my DM training. Concurrently, the PADI music playing in the background was about “joining the elite” and becoming an instructor. None of this seemed normal to me. The other instructors who took me along on their dives made it clear that my experience wasn’t normal. Lastly, the resort’s resident course director, who I dived with multiple times, was also puzzled that my certification process was so drawn out despite the instructor being there every weekend.

What’s most surprising to me is there was no peer counseling or corrective counseling from the CD for the instructor. The instructor has somehow bypassed the course evaluation process to avoid (I think) negative feedback from students. That he won an achievement award at a regional PADI conference for number of divers certified over the year compelled me to draw some conclusions about PADI faster than I anticipated.

My perception is as long as PADI maintains a profitable draw of beginner divers and they don’t have a spike in training-related accidents, they’re satisfied they're hitting their corporate goals. I know that now but wish I could have discerned that somehow when I saw the PADI 5 Star banners in dive shop windows that tickled my interest to learn to dive.

BOW certification complete, I wanted to become a more proficient diver and was not satisfied with all the boundaries of casual recreational diving so I switched agencies, got great training from another instructor and now I’m here on SB to learn more.

 

[NothingClever]

Do yourself a favour and hook up with some UTD or GUE divers or instructors......a different way of doing things.

Thanks, deco....I am definitely interested in training with an organization that has higher standards. I dive with GUE grads now so the interest is piqued.

Not afraid to share my novice status, I hadn’t heard of UTD so I’ll have to check them out.