Looking for guidance in choosing internship programme

[LukeSadler05]

Hi all,

First of all apologies if this is in the wrong place, this is my first post on the site and this seemed the most relevant section.

I have recently returned from a gap year of travel and whilst travelling Austalia I did an intro to diving trip which included 2 dives on the GBR, which i absolutely loved. I'm a massive fan of anything water/ocean related, and diving in the GBR had been a lifelong dram. Ever since then I have been dying to go diving again, and the travelling has opened my eyes to how many amazing places there are out there and how i'm not ready to settle into a 9-5 career back here in the UK.

This is where this post comes in!

Long story short I have been looking into the possibility of doing a Divemaster/Instructor intern ship and would really appreciate some advice and guidance from the experts on here. I have spent a couple of days reading numerous posts on here and looking at several different programmes from all over the globe, so i have a little bit of an idea what I'm looking for. Ideally I'd like to qualify as a DM or instructor and then spend a few years travelling the globe diving for a living and hobby.

The first thing I'd appreciate some advice on is which type of internship i should be looking at? Originally i came across the type of internship that lasts 2-3 months or so from being OW qualified through to Instructor qualified. This would mean doing my OW course here in the UK (or maybe Tenerife?) first and then heading to Thailand/Egypt/Caribbean to complete this training. Then i came across a couple of different companies that offered the 'free internship' courses where you spend a longer period of 6-8 months and train from start to finish and work for the company in exchange for the training. Aside from the obvious financial benefit involved in these offers, I like idea of spending a longer period in this environment as i can fully understand what it's like to work in the industry on a day by day basis. I'd also get the opportunity to log a lot more dives along the way doing this, and hopefully learn a lot more along the way. Can anyone offer an opinion on which sort of course would be more highly recommended?

Following on from this, could anyone recommend any specific locations or dive centres for either of the above types of internship? I know it all comes down to personal preference and finding a centre that meets your individual needs but there's no harm in any recommendations Advice from anyone who has done one of these courses would be particularly welcomed.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[tstormdiver]

Let me ask,... would you want to learn from or have a loved one learn from someone who goes through a "0 to hero" program in a few short months? Sorry,... I'll get off the soap box now.... My suggestion (though you may not want to hear it),... Get your OW certification. Start working on relavent specialties (Nitorx, night, deep, rescue,....), Dive, dive, dive,.... & did I say dive? Get lots of diving experience with known & trusted buddies & eventually with strangers. Get lots of experience diving salt water, fresh water, warm water, cold water, calm water, currents, good visibility, bad visibility,.... any kind of coditions you can think of. The once you get that experience go for your Dive Master level all the while practicing your basic skills. Hone them to a razor's edge. Once there, assist for a good long while to learn how to help out with diving students. Don't go the quick & easy way. Take it slow & methodical it will do yourself & any potential students you have justice in quality of what you teach.

 

[LukeSadler05]

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the advice. Even if it's not what I wanted to hear.

I do understand your logic, and in an ideal world I would possibly go this way, however I am really not keen on taking this approach as I live a good 3 hours away from any diving locations and this makes it impractical and very expensive to dive from where I currently live. That's what made me look into the internships in the first place.

Surely though there must be a market for these courses or else no-one would offer them? I don't want to go from 'zero to hero' in too short a period and without becoming confident and competent enough to work safely. That's what appealed most to me about the longer internship, the opportunity to gain a lot more experience and dive on a daily basis over a considerable time before i was 'let loose'.

Has anyone here gone through one of these internships and could offer any reviews or advice? or anyone able to point me in the direction of any websites or blogs etc with reviews?

 

[tstormdiver]

I can appreciate your situation & your enthusiasm. There is certainly a market for those types of courses & I will admit there are probably a few Instructor Trainers that can turn out decent instructors like that. However, I would guess that is probably far & few between. There have been several threads here on Scubaboard about such courses & most say about the same thing I have. Truly, unless you are exceptionally gifted & natural at diving from the get go, the only way to become profiecent at diving is to dive many, many times & practice the basic skills. I had nearly 250 dives before I even considered Dive Master (Dive Control Specialist in my case),... after that course, I really understood how little I actually knew. I had to work my butt off to become profiecent enough to pass the course. I spent hours on a platform, just practicing basic skills. Another thing is burn out,.. the average life span of an instructor is about 3 yrs before burn out. As an instructor I have come to learn how important & necessary it is for me to dive for myself from time to time. If I taught all the time,.... I would come to hate the sport & resent my students. That 's not fair to them. Even if its at my local quarry that I already have over 450 dives in.

 

[Bubble Junky]

I would steer clear of the 'free' training. It's normally offered by greedy dive shop owners, who care little for their staff. The instructors are the ones that are teaching you, not the owners, and if they're not getting paid a fair wage for thier knowledge and experience, then they will feel disgruntled and you may not get the best education.

Also bear in mind that there's a minimum of six months as a cetified diver (OW) before you can enroll in an instructor course...

I would also recommend diving in different locations/conditions. Maybe take your OW, AOW and Rescue in three different locations before starting a Go Pro internship somewhere... In Asia this is easy to do...

 

[Jim Lapenta]

And read the fine print. These free courses usually are not. You still have to eat and sleep while learning. That means you need to buy food and pay rent. All the while you are also working from perhaps before dawn to.way after dark doing grunt work. These are often in countries with no labor laws or if they do have them they are not enforced. So if you don't like what they tell you to do, tough. Go home.
The dive industry is one, unlike others where you are hired and paid while training, where slave labor is not only tolerated but encouraged. Agencies provide incentives to those operations that churn out "pro's" like rabbits produce babies. And turn a blind eye to things like labor laws, minimum wages, and the like. The burnout rate is a result of this sausage factory approach. So many pro's and pro wannabe's get taken advantage of that a steady stream of fresh meat is necessary. Add to that those who will work for free that devalue the entire professional.ranks and you have one reason that few instructors make a good living at this.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Quero]

There are many programmes that bundle the whole zero-to-hero into one price. Avoid these. You will do all your training in one set of diving conditions with one set of instructors. What makes for a more well-rounded instructor is to do pay-as-you-go courses in which you get experience in different sorts of dive environments, and once you're ready for your pro-level courses, you will have a better idea of the sort of dive centre you want to be associated with for your internship. You can go back to one of the schools/instructors you worked with in your recreational courses, or get a recommendation for a similar one from her/him, or you can go back to a place you particularly liked the atmosphere of, etc. You not only become a more well-rounded diver this way, but you also get a better idea of the variation of business models in the dive industry. If you want to work as a dive professional, you must take it seriously and not do it just because YOU like to dive. Remember that a dive pro's job is to make the experience enriching for the CUSTOMERS, not to get "free dives".

 

[LukeSadler05]

Thanks for all the advice. I think having read your advice and doing a little more reading across the web i'm now leaning towards avoiding one of the free internships and instead considering doing what a couple of you have suggested and doing the equivalent training in a few different locations.

My current idea is to save some money and head out to SE Asia and do the training in smaller lumps in a couple of different locations. Maybe the OW + AOW in one location, Rescue diver in another location and then doing a divemaster internship in a further location. This will allow me to dive in a number of different places and learn from a number of different instructors.

How does that sound? and can anyone recommend from experience any particular locations or diveshops worth considering?

Thanks again.

 

[Bubble Junky]

I would consider locations like Bali and Pulau Weh to get experience of currents. Pulau Weh's good for Rescue as you have nice easy beach dive conditions and potentially strong currents when you dive from the boat. Maybe Sipadan for the OW/AOW, as you get some good shallow diving from Mabul and deeper water for your AOW off Sipadan itself.

Thailand is always an option for the internships, as there's no shortage of courses to assist on...

 

[LukeSadler05]

Sorry for the continued posting but as im sure you're away this is obviously a big decision and therefore one that i dont want to rush into without considering all options and deciding what is 100% best for me.

On that note, i think i have decided on an option which is half way between my original plan of a 'free internship' and the suggested advice of slowly building up experience and logging dives before attempting to become a diving instructor. I have been looking at a couple of diving internships held in Tenerife which will allow me to go from open water through to qualified divemaster in roughly an 8 week period. This will mean that i can achieve the professional qualification in a reasonable time frame and at a much reduced cost to myself. After this i would hope to work for a while at home and save enough money to head out to South East Asia where i could use the divemaster qualification to 'work around' SEA as a divemaster in order to gain a wealth of experience in a number of locations, and from a number of different instructors guiding me. I appreciate that doing this will not be the most glamorous, well paid role going but if i manage to earn a little to help towards expenses whilst managing to build up this experience then all the better. This route would allow me to get a taster of what its like to work in a dive shop over the 8 weeks without committing to 6 or 7 months needed for a zero to hero free internship.

So... my question to you experts is as follows... what would be your advice on this? is it a sensible option?

Many thanks again for all your help so far and for any future help.