How long are most OW courses?

[soulrebel]

How long are most OW courses in other countries? I live in Australia and my course was:

Friday night - theory (basically a review of homework sheets completed with the help of videos & text on a CD-ROM)
Saturday - pool & 1 dive
Sunday - 3 dives

From some of the posts I've been reading on here, it sounds like some of the OW courses go for weeks? Whats the average?

If it makes any difference it was an SDI course

 

[Diver0001]

I'm a PADI instructor and where I work we have the OW course over 7 sessons. 5 of those weeks are one evening from 4 1/2 hours including an hour in the pool and 2 of those are 1/2 days in open water including 2 dives.

So what's that all together.... about 30 hours I guess. Students do about another 20 or so at home in that time, reading books, doing the knowledge sections etc.

Theoretically if the student was already prepared you could compress 30 hours into 3 long days but I wouldn't be comfortable working like that because I have my doubts if people can retain the information if it comes at them so fast.

R..

 

[don Francisco]

I took my PADI OW course about 10 years ago and it involved roughly 10 hours of classroom time and 10 hours of pool work. It was on weekday evenings spread over 6-7 weeks, after which we did the dives 2 per day on weekend trip to a decent site about 150 miles away. This doesn't count time spent at home, reading the manual and doing reviews.

In Cozumel they teach OW over 2-3 days of mixed class and pool work, then the dives 2 per day, for a total of 4-5 days, plus homework.

Whether spread out over evenings or compressed into a few days, I'd guess a decent course would average 10-20 hours plus 4 dives, not counting time at home reading the manual.

It could take less time with fewer students, especially in the pool, but I think that many courses unfortunately skimp on classroom time, doing nothing but quickly reviewing the material in the manual, leaving students short changed in their understanding of theory. Others shorten pool time to doing the basic drills without enough time to work seriously on bouyancy and trim.

In my opinion compressed cources are like skimming a textbook and cramming for a test. Yes, you pass and get a C-card, but how comfortable are you with the material and how much do you retain 2-5 months afterwards? They might be OK if followed immediately by a short series of dives to cement the knowledge, but otherwise probably need to be suplemented by a refresher course later on.

 

[Pitchblack]

My Ow-course took 6 weeks, our schedule was Tuesdays theory class and Thursdays confined water, that took 4 weeks (last theory class lesson 4 and 5 were compressed together, just like confined 4 and 5)

Due to bad weather conditions we had to wait one week to start the open water dives and when conditions got better we did 2 dives per weekend.

 

[scubadmike]

I got my cert from P. A. D .I. ITS ABOUT THE SAME IN THE U.S.A. It's standard course ....

 

[Walter]

Most take a little more time than the one you took, but they seem to be getting shorter all the time. One weekend classes are becoming very common and lately that one weekend has been including the check out dives. The average class is extremely poor.

A good class will have 16 or more hours in the pool in sessions lasting no more than two hours each and a similar amount of time in a classroom. It's much better if it is spread out over several weeks. Good classes are becoming harder to find.

 

[The Kraken]

Have to agree with Walter on this one.

I my personal opinion, too short of a course only prepares one to fall into the water and breathe without killing one's self.

the K

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Barring any difficulties(guy's wife not comfortable with diving) my next course will be starting in March. It is set up to be 8 weeks in the pool of 2 hours each session one night per week and 2-3 hours of classroom 1 night per week. We may go longer on pool sessions, but generally after 2-2 1/2 hours students start getting chilled. Followed by 5 dives over a weekend (1 skin and 4 scuba). I like to get 16-18 hours of pool and will spend 16-20 on classroom if possible. Spreading it out like that does not result in students not getting the material and retaining it. In fact I've found that since I present all of the critical info and can see the results immediately I can better tailor homework and self study assignments. THey do not fly blind when it comes to what they need to cover in addition to the classroom.

 

[Jim Baldwin]

How long are most OW courses in other countries? I live in Australia and my course was:

Friday night - theory (basically a review of homework sheets completed with the help of videos & text on a CD-ROM)
Saturday - pool & 1 dive
Sunday - 3 dives

From some of the posts I've been reading on here, it sounds like some of the OW courses go for weeks? Whats the average?

If it makes any difference it was an SDI course

Myself along with three other instructors teach OW, AOW and Rescue at the local university (LA Tech). We're on the quarter system and we have the students in the pool for 10-12, hour-long sessions, plus we have classroom for one hour a week. At the end of the quarter we then offer the open water dives off campus.

Clearly this makes for a much better prepared student when they do their open water dives. The Resuce divers have practiced their skills so much that it's very easy for them to perform the necessary skills.

This past weekend I had five students in an OW weekend class. They had already done the knowledge reviews watched the vidoes and had absolutely no problems with the academics or pool work. They were motivated and it was a real pleasure teaching this class. We will be doing their OW dives in a couple of weeks and they will breeze through.

I have had some students that simply did not have the skills down and have had them come back for more pool sessions until we were both comfortable that they could master the open water dives.

 

[NudeDiver]

How long are most OW courses in other countries?

Mine was 5 or 6 weeks (in 2003). My wife's was 3 days (in 2007). Both were in the US (Alaska and Florida respectively).