IDC Choices: 2 Week vs 12 Month Internship

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Messages
3
Reaction score
7
Location
Ohio, USA
# of dives
200 - 499
Hey there divers, I'm here hoping to get some suggestions from certified instructors. I am currently a PADI Divemaster/EFR Instructor with more than 10 years of diving under my belt, 3 of them as a PADI Pro. I have run multiple EFR classes, Discover SCUBA's, and refreshers in this time. I also DM for at least one open water class per week.

I am ready to make the move to instructor and am antsy to get started, but this year's one local (Midwest) instructor examination I cannot make due to a family wedding.
Because of this, my options are to fly to Florida and do a week and a half IDC with Rainbow Reef or the like, or wait until next year to do my class and train with a local instructor, in the diving conditions I will be instructing in for the foreeable future (cold water quarry/lake diving).

I wanted to get some information on the general vibe in the professional sphere with both avenues. The 9 day IDC's scream "just get you through and get the card" to me, as all my education up to this poimt has been multi-month or multi-year classes. To those that have been through IDC/IE, what are your opinions either way? Do you "look down" on instructors who were certified at one of the "mill" dive centers?

Thanks so much for your help!
 
I don't look down on them but there are more than a few I've personally seen who I wouldn't get in the pool with. They know how to do everything by the book but when it comes to dealing with something or someone not in the book or wasn't covered in their IDC, they get the deer in the headlights look.

Now, that said, you are in a different boat so to speak. You have been, in effect, doing an IDC for the last 3 years with what you have been doing as a DM. Totally different than the muppet who rushed from OW to instructor in 6 months. I understand what you mean as my YMCA instructor development lasted nearly a year and included a couple technical certs from NAUI in the process. I did my OW portion of the Instructor exam in a drysuit in the rain, 56 degree air temps, 54 degree water, with "students" in 6 mil famer johns and drysuits. Taught my first class a week later. Owner of the shop gave me three students and said "here ya go. Get em done." And after team teaching and DMing for the past year I was ready.

Where in Ohio are you? I can't believe that there isn't another IDC in Ohio with the number of CD's and centers that are there that could fit your schedule. Andy Silverman at Columbus Scuba, Patrix Heschel, Rich Synowiec is in Michigan but has the concession at White Star, are just three off the top of my head who regularly run IDC's. I personally know all of them and can vouch for all three as being people who would not just rubber stamp your certification.

Going to one of them would be better than going to Florida because there's a good chance you can do the IDC in a drysuit or at least part of it that will be necessary for Ohio quarries.
 
Hey there divers, I'm here hoping to get some suggestions from certified instructors. I am currently a PADI Divemaster/EFR Instructor with more than 10 years of diving under my belt, 3 of them as a PADI Pro. I have run multiple EFR classes, Discover SCUBA's, and refreshers in this time. I also DM for at least one open water class per week.

I am ready to make the move to instructor and am antsy to get started, but this year's one local (Midwest) instructor examination I cannot make due to a family wedding.
Because of this, my options are to fly to Florida and do a week and a half IDC with Rainbow Reef or the like, or wait until next year to do my class and train with a local instructor, in the diving conditions I will be instructing in for the foreeable future (cold water quarry/lake diving).

I wanted to get some information on the general vibe in the professional sphere with both avenues. The 9 day IDC's scream "just get you through and get the card" to me, as all my education up to this poimt has been multi-month or multi-year classes. To those that have been through IDC/IE, what are your opinions either way? Do you "look down" on instructors who were certified at one of the "mill" dive centers?

Thanks so much for your help!

You probably know this, but I'm not sure based on your post... You can do your idc and ie in totally different places. Often your course director will go with you if you're doing something locally, but that isn't required. I had a pretty marginal IDC in Mexico and then took my IE in Texas.

If I were looking to do an IDC now, I'd want to know what specifically is taught.

In your IE you have two exams, one is a five part that includes dive physics and physiology along with three other easier topics. IIRC, if you fail any one of the parts, you have failed that exam. My IDC had 0 instruction on physics and physiology. My buddy and I had to teach ourselves this material - make sure your idc covers it...

The second written test is standards, and that's open book. It isn't terribly hard if you know where you're looking in the instructor's manual and have tabbed it during IDC.

Classroom presentations are kind of silly, rote exercises. Everyone teaches the hell out of these.

There are confined water presentations and open water. Use your cards, or better, create a cheat sheet that you can just read in the water. There are no points off for reading verbatim from your card. The other question is, how much time will you be spending in CW working skills? My idc had about 4 hours of pool time, which I didn't think was adequate.

Open water is much like confined, but make sure that you're practicing your dive rescue exercise (or have mastered it before you go). Make sure you know how to tie all the knots in AOW.

That's a long unsolicited answer to stuff you didn't ask, but I hope it's helpful.
 
As an old store owner whenever we have gotten a new instructor we start by putting him with a trusted instructor so that we can have an independent assessment.
 
Hey there divers, I'm here hoping to get some suggestions from certified instructors. I am currently a PADI Divemaster/EFR Instructor with more than 10 years of diving under my belt, 3 of them as a PADI Pro. I have run multiple EFR classes, Discover SCUBA's, and refreshers in this time. I also DM for at least one open water class per week.

I am ready to make the move to instructor and am antsy to get started, but this year's one local (Midwest) instructor examination I cannot make due to a family wedding.
Because of this, my options are to fly to Florida and do a week and a half IDC with Rainbow Reef or the like, or wait until next year to do my class and train with a local instructor, in the diving conditions I will be instructing in for the foreeable future (cold water quarry/lake diving).

I wanted to get some information on the general vibe in the professional sphere with both avenues. The 9 day IDC's scream "just get you through and get the card" to me, as all my education up to this poimt has been multi-month or multi-year classes. To those that have been through IDC/IE, what are your opinions either way? Do you "look down" on instructors who were certified at one of the "mill" dive centers?

Thanks so much for your help!

What does your current employer have to say about it?

Using my GI Bill I went with PADI then crossed over to SSI for my local shop. Since I was not their student they require me to intern (work for free) for three courses for each course I want to teach.

How much work will actually gain by becoming an instructor now vs next season?

There is some value in going through a mill and just getting it done. My DM shop worked me for several years as a DM candidate trying to get all the checkboxes completed because they didn't have the student load. To be fair I also work half the weekends for my main job.

Sam
 
Being in Ohio, you have several options for an on-demand IDC and IE.
Both underwater connections in Columbus and Davey Bones in Barberton. Both can do in house IDC and IE.
I would reach out locally before heading to the keys for a week.
 
I have recommended Ross Neill at Rainbow Reef to many of our local divers who decided to train other than here (Kwajalein). Rainbow Reef is going to teach you how to use PADI’s teaching system…just like most other IDC programs. It will be up to you how you implement it. How to mix your style into your courses.

Jim Lapenta just wrote/posted a great list of recommendations for a Rescue Course. On this list you can see a lot of Jim’s style and years of experience. That is what makes a good instructor, not their IDC.

Many times some of these “Instructor Factories” get a bad reputation because they create Zeros to Heros in bulk. But take a look at yourself. You have been diving 10 years, a DM for 3 years locally, taught EFR, and assisted with other courses. I think Rainbow Reef would be a great fit for you. Take the IDC and IE in two weeks then go back home and help with a class or two locally. Now you’re ready to start your own journey as an instructor. You will be learning as much as your students. It can be quite the experience.
 
Hello everyone, thank you all for your well thought out answers! I wanted to follow up on this post because I've had a few other DM's who were in a similar situation as me reach out and see what route I ended up taking. Long story short I took the comments a few of you had about how long I have been diving to heart, bit the bullet, and put down my deposit at Rainbow Reef in Key Largo, Florida.

A few other motivating factors were that the main instructor at our shop really steered me in the direction of a "getaway" IDC because of all the after-class homework involved, and I'm glad she did. The homework was by no means overwhelming, but being in a bubble, away from work, around a group of 5 other IDC candidates definitely allowed me to focus on the course. The other reason was that if I waited until next year to do my IE, it wouldn't be until later in the year, past my shop's cert season so I would miss out on another year of getting a jump-start. Finally, for those that offered the idea that you can do the IDC in one place and IE in another, I knew this was an option but not one I would ever want to do looking back now. The relationships I was able to build with my candidate cohort and instructors not only through the IDC but by successfully completing the IE and celebrating with them was priceless.

In regards to Rainbow Reef, Ross Neill was the presiding Course Director, with a large cast of other CD's, MI's, and IDCS Instructors. Shout outs to Chad, Mustafa, Tim, Paul, Jo, and even Orlando the retail manager who helped us during the Business of Diving workshop. I have nothing but good things to say about my experience with Rainbow, the training seemed, to me, top notch and we were well taken care of. As you can see, RR has a huge staff which was definitely a help with everyone's development. For instance, a few of my fellow candidates struggled with the Dive Theory concepts but were able to identify one of the staff who they were comfortable with asking for help. For those looking to do your IDC, I can relate it to OW like this - you can think of IDCSI's and MI's as your "divemasters" in that they are a "less intimidating" person to go to than your instructor (in the IDC, your CD).

I took the opportunity to stay in the free on-campus housing which I was pretty blown away by how nice it was. It is definitely "hostel style" accommodations in that my apartment had 3 bedrooms with 2 twin XL beds in each room. I would highly recommend doing your class in the "off season" (December) because in that big apartment, it was just myself and a IDCSI who came down to audit the IDC to get his MI rating. The only knocks I had with the room were that there were some small ants, not as big as we get up here in the Midwest but nonetheless they were there; the level of maintenance wasn't the best, with a few spackled over holes unpainted and a cabinet door or two missing; and finally the cable TV in our room did not work and our room did not have a Roku like the others did so we had to go out to a bar to watch the NFL games on Sunday, not the end of the world. All in all it was a great environment to study, socialize, and feel safe in.

We had a 6 candidate cohort for the IDC and even though you get split into teams that compete "against" eachother, we were all able to pull together and form a strong bond. We did have a candidate or two who struggled with some pool skills but the cool thing was that our fellow candidates worked together to get them where they needed to be and Chad and Mustafa were kind enough to hang around to give us extra pool time on our final day of the IDC. It's a good thing we took that extra 30-60 minutes, because one of the skills we worked on was one of the 5 skills selected for our IE skills assessment. My biggest recommendation for incoming IDC candidates, practice your demonstration quality skills, especially the ones you don't think will be picked (things as simple as emergency weight drop and LPI disconnect do get chosen).

Between confined and open water I feel like RR definitely did a great job of preparing us for all the curve balls the IE can throw at you because Ross is also (or has been?) a PADI Examiner. We did countless pool dives, a confined open water dive at Jules Undersea Lodge (the same place our IE was conducted), and two boat dives in different days for our open water practice dives. We had the boats to ourselves for both these excusrisons which was a huge convenience.

When the time came for the IE I was somewhat nervous because of how much work we had put in to get to this point but once we had our intro session with the Examiner (Nick Jenny, PADI SE Florida Regional Manager) my nerves disappeared. I could tell after meeting Nick and having the material put in front of me that I was well prepared by my IDC to be successful. I won't get into exactly what skills were chosen for the IE because it's copyrighted information but suffice to say a few people are guaranteed have CESA. In terms of attendance our RR cohort took up more than half of the candidates at the IE with three from another Keys shop and one from Tampa. The entire group was split into two teams so Nick could have reasonable size groups to evaluate. I will say it was an incredibly comforting feeling having all 4 of my "students" that I would be "instructing" be people I had been in the water with for 2 weeks so I already knew what each of their skills looked like, making it easier to tell when someone had an assigned problem I had to fix.

Anyway, my IDC cohort had a 100% pass rate and we all had a great time. I would highly recommend Rainbow Reef for your IDC and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to direct message me or reply here!
 
Hello everyone, thank you all for your well thought out answers! I wanted to follow up on this post because I've had a few other DM's who were in a similar situation as me reach out and see what route I ended up taking. Long story short I took the comments a few of you had about how long I have been diving to heart, bit the bullet, and put down my deposit at Rainbow Reef in Key Largo, Florida.

A few other motivating factors were that the main instructor at our shop really steered me in the direction of a "getaway" IDC because of all the after-class homework involved, and I'm glad she did. The homework was by no means overwhelming, but being in a bubble, away from work, around a group of 5 other IDC candidates definitely allowed me to focus on the course. The other reason was that if I waited until next year to do my IE, it wouldn't be until later in the year, past my shop's cert season so I would miss out on another year of getting a jump-start. Finally, for those that offered the idea that you can do the IDC in one place and IE in another, I knew this was an option but not one I would ever want to do looking back now. The relationships I was able to build with my candidate cohort and instructors not only through the IDC but by successfully completing the IE and celebrating with them was priceless.

In regards to Rainbow Reef, Ross Neill was the presiding Course Director, with a large cast of other CD's, MI's, and IDCS Instructors. Shout outs to Chad, Mustafa, Tim, Paul, Jo, and even Orlando the retail manager who helped us during the Business of Diving workshop. I have nothing but good things to say about my experience with Rainbow, the training seemed, to me, top notch and we were well taken care of. As you can see, RR has a huge staff which was definitely a help with everyone's development. For instance, a few of my fellow candidates struggled with the Dive Theory concepts but were able to identify one of the staff who they were comfortable with asking for help. For those looking to do your IDC, I can relate it to OW like this - you can think of IDCSI's and MI's as your "divemasters" in that they are a "less intimidating" person to go to than your instructor (in the IDC, your CD).

I took the opportunity to stay in the free on-campus housing which I was pretty blown away by how nice it was. It is definitely "hostel style" accommodations in that my apartment had 3 bedrooms with 2 twin XL beds in each room. I would highly recommend doing your class in the "off season" (December) because in that big apartment, it was just myself and a IDCSI who came down to audit the IDC to get his MI rating. The only knocks I had with the room were that there were some small ants, not as big as we get up here in the Midwest but nonetheless they were there; the level of maintenance wasn't the best, with a few spackled over holes unpainted and a cabinet door or two missing; and finally the cable TV in our room did not work and our room did not have a Roku like the others did so we had to go out to a bar to watch the NFL games on Sunday, not the end of the world. All in all it was a great environment to study, socialize, and feel safe in.

We had a 6 candidate cohort for the IDC and even though you get split into teams that compete "against" eachother, we were all able to pull together and form a strong bond. We did have a candidate or two who struggled with some pool skills but the cool thing was that our fellow candidates worked together to get them where they needed to be and Chad and Mustafa were kind enough to hang around to give us extra pool time on our final day of the IDC. It's a good thing we took that extra 30-60 minutes, because one of the skills we worked on was one of the 5 skills selected for our IE skills assessment. My biggest recommendation for incoming IDC candidates, practice your demonstration quality skills, especially the ones you don't think will be picked (things as simple as emergency weight drop and LPI disconnect do get chosen).

Between confined and open water I feel like RR definitely did a great job of preparing us for all the curve balls the IE can throw at you because Ross is also (or has been?) a PADI Examiner. We did countless pool dives, a confined open water dive at Jules Undersea Lodge (the same place our IE was conducted), and two boat dives in different days for our open water practice dives. We had the boats to ourselves for both these excusrisons which was a huge convenience.

When the time came for the IE I was somewhat nervous because of how much work we had put in to get to this point but once we had our intro session with the Examiner (Nick Jenny, PADI SE Florida Regional Manager) my nerves disappeared. I could tell after meeting Nick and having the material put in front of me that I was well prepared by my IDC to be successful. I won't get into exactly what skills were chosen for the IE because it's copyrighted information but suffice to say a few people are guaranteed have CESA. In terms of attendance our RR cohort took up more than half of the candidates at the IE with three from another Keys shop and one from Tampa. The entire group was split into two teams so Nick could have reasonable size groups to evaluate. I will say it was an incredibly comforting feeling having all 4 of my "students" that I would be "instructing" be people I had been in the water with for 2 weeks so I already knew what each of their skills looked like, making it easier to tell when someone had an assigned problem I had to fix.

Anyway, my IDC cohort had a 100% pass rate and we all had a great time. I would highly recommend Rainbow Reef for your IDC and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to direct message me or reply here!
Congratulations … now the fun begins. No two classes are the same, yet, they all are awesome.
 
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