I do think a lot of the Monterey divers get picked up by the trained people there fairly early, and a lot of you seem to take Essentials from Don before you do Fundies -- and you form your teams before class. All of these things make the class easier and more likely to be successful. But I have to admit the level of intensity of this Fundies class really raised my eyebrows. In my class, none of the six of us passed, but there was nowhere near the amount of misery or anger, either during the class or after it.
There were problems with this one, I think.
I agree - this class sounds very different from my experience. Classes here are routinely (exclusively?) run in a two-weekend format, with the first weekend in the pool/classroom and the second in the ocean. Standards were definitely high, but at no point did I feel that we were not given the assistance and opportunities necessary to succeed. Certainly the amount of pool time is borderline incomparable to what I went through...
I initially came out of class with a provisional pass, and got my rec pass a couple of months later.
EDIT: It's definitely not always the case that teams are formed prior to class around here... I know of at least a few recent examples where that's not true.
We definitely have a few things going in our favor here in NorCal/Monterey...
Instructors
We now have three local GUE Fundies instructors and one local UTD Essentials instructor, all of whom I'd recommend in a heartbeat. Fundies classes are routinely co-taught - there is no shortage of instructor attention in class. The benefits of this are hopefully self-explanatory.
Don and Essentials
GUE Primer is not really run here. That's primarily (as I understand it) due to the fact that there is a waiting list for people who want to take Fundies. With Fundies participants being a generally self-selected group who are "known motivated" and the cost structure being what it is, there is currently little room on instructor schedules for running primers. Given that, taking Essentials of Rec from Don has become a "common" (relative to Scubaboard Norcal forum members) option. I took it from him. He's a fabulous diver/instructor, and the local UTD and GUE folks are generally quite friendly with each other, so there are
minimal (non-zero though) issues as a result. Truth be told, I actually feel a bit bad about the position a number of us have put him in, because he's an
excellent instructor and I hate to see somebody like that relegated to running preparatory sessions for another agency's students... There are reasons why I think it's worked out that way though, such as...
TRULY Local Tech Instructor + Crossover Difficulty
Having a local Tech1 instructor helps a lot to keep people motivated, especially when you probably met him during Fundies at the ocean
(and during review at the end of ocean days)
I do think that this affects Don's situation a bit... While UTD has technical instruction to both the north and south of us, GUE has Beto right here. While crossing over into UTD appears to be relatively straightforward, the barrier to crossing over into GUE training seems a bit higher, all things considered. If you're committed to pursuing Tech1 (from any agency) sometime after fundies, a GUE-F tech pass is simply the more flexible option locally.
Don - take the tech IDC.
Community/BAUE
MoCal is packed with DIR and DIR'esque divers. There are a significant (and growing) number of GUE and/or UTD trained divers in the area, at nearly all levels of experience. Divers looking for mentoring here have no shortage of options. Even for those who haven't had training yet, I think a lot of them have had exposure to the system by diving with those who have been trained in the system. It's also not uncommon for that person to have been Don, meaning that a fair number of people have had instructor-level reference put in front of them (and in my experience he's always willing to offer advice, answer questions, etc.). Specifically on the GUE side, BAUE provides an excellent resource and community for GUE trained divers.
Motivation
Beyond the community, we have a lot of other things that help to push people through these classes - namely, our local diving. There is excellent diving at almost any level of recreational or technical training (no cave) available here, and no matter what it is there's probably a community of people diving it a lot. Someday, I will figure out how to make a graph that correlates interest in technical training with visits to Clinton and Rob's excellent photographs of our local deep diving.
...
Sorry, I didn't really intend to write that much, but I'm honestly a bit taken aback right now. Reading this thread has really driven home how lucky I am - being in this area, having this community available to me, and going through Essentials/Fundies with our instructors. Honestly, I'm struggling to imagine what it must be like to try and get this done from afar, with minimal community support and mentoring before and after class.
