GUE recreational classes - early details

[robzr]

Maybe, but I still have a hard time seeing it fly. I think GUE would be better served by focusing on a bang-up AOW/Rescue/Deep course followed by their Recreational Triox. I just can't fathom why they'd want to bother with OW training. It's not until after OW training that folks really begin to get an idea of what they want out of their diving. The unique approach that GUE offers doesn't really come into play for almost everyone until that point.

You're describing the way things work now. Sounds to me like GUEs shooting for a new way of doing things. Visionary - just like Apple. I hope it goes the way of the iPod and not the Newton, but time will tell.

Word of mouth is the best advertisement, wait till the first few generations of students get their GUE OW cert and start evangelizing on the web forums and talking to their wannabe-diver friends. Even PADI started somewhere...

Rob

 

[Divin'Papaw]

You're describing the way things work now. Sounds to me like GUEs shooting for a new way of doing things. Visionary - just like Apple. I hope it goes the way of the iPod and not the Newton, but time will tell.

Word of mouth is the best advertisement, wait till the first few generations of students get their GUE OW cert and start evangelizing on the web forums and talking to their wannabe-diver friends. Even PADI started somewhere...

Rob

Chicago!

 

[robzr]

Chicago!

Wow I had no idea, right in my backyard.

Scuba America Historical Center - The founding of PADI

"Many of his trainees were those who couldn't complete the rigorous YMCA course....It would be the first "for-profit" certifying agency."

Rob

 

[Thalassamania]

You are assuming that "academic setting" means a "scuba class" like the one you are describing. That is not what I mean. Can you think of any other university program that might be able to use a more "robust " (god, I hate that word) diving program as part of it's requirement that produces more skilled divers with significantly better than average skill levels? (Hint: Ask Thalass)

If you mean the training of scientific divers I'd have to say that GUE training will not work. I don't want to get into a whole discussion of DIR vs. Rec vs. Tec vs. Scientific Diving ... we've done that before and it's rather pointless. I'm also not saying that you can't do good science and dive DIR, that's patently stupid. In a nutshell, DIR has a number of strongly held beliefs, deeply rooted in its philosophy that fly in the face of some similar items in the scientific diving community. If we want to discuss those somewhere else, I'd be happy to.

In a more general sense (and again, if you want to continue along these lines please start a new thread, outside of the DIR area and don't hijack this one) we believe that the institution is sovereign, that the Diving Control Board is the final authority and not a training agency and the Diving Safety Officer, in consultation with the board is the final arbiter of all things diving. This does not mesh well with a structure that insists it knows better what the institution needs than the institution does.

When I ran entry level programs at the university level, I never certified divers directly through an agency. I certified them first as university scientific divers, and then met an agency's mossback (experienced diver) specification, solely for the future convenience of the diver. Thus the documents that I was bound by were the standards in the University Diving Safety Manual and the guidelines of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences. In the academic world (outside of some PE activity programs) we have no more need for programs promulgated by diver training agencies than does the military, or NOAA, or National Parks, or EPA, etc. We also have no need for their insurance and their sometimes inappropriate restrictions.

 

[JeffG]

For the GUE Instructor it should provide an added program that that will help keep them busy, bring a few bucks in, and turn out divers who are significantly more skilled than most that you see today. Bully for them.

For that reason I think it is good, but as an "What Impact to the Dive Industry" point of view....all I see is a big yawn.