My Venture into GUE - Another view

[Lobzilla]

My apologies if the tone in my last post sounded a little harsh. It was not meant that way.

Your following posts confirm what I think the underlying problem is. GUE-F is too many things for different people under one umbrella.

Some see this as an eye opener, others as a preparation for "failure is not an option" environments like cave or wreck, even others just want to have fun. Then, we have instructors that are hard but fair (which I prefer) and others that are more of the "no child left behind" school. And on top of it we have two different performance standards in one class.

Is anyone still surprised that at the end of the day you have conflicting results and conflicting opinions about the outcome?

 

[PfcAJ]

I have a real hard time relating to what's happened in this class you guys experienced.

Each time I go into a GUE class, I just try to learn everything I can and do my best. Each time I've videoed a class, the students were the same way. There must have been something real interesting happening in this particular class.

Sure, there are two different performance standards. So what? If you don't perform to tech pass standards at the end, you get a rec pass. Don't make that? You get a provisional. If a provisional is off the table, then, naturally, you have to retake the class if you want to pass it. Sounds like GUE is trying as hard as possible to give people options besides failing. I'd call that a huge plus!

 

[Anti-Hero]

My useless $0.2

GUE-F isn't for everyone... I wanted to quit so many times. I'm glad I didn't.

 

[Mayor]

What did I learn in GUE-F??? It's hard to only list a few.......

That I thought I was better then I was ( can't hide from the video mr 2)
Stress and diving don't mix but can be controlled ( without drugs)
Sherwood is a human ( I think?)
Gear suggestions should be followed ( just listen to the guy with 30,000 dives)
We sure have to cover a lot in a short time (8am to 9pm every day)
Head back, butt tight gets it done
Always check your gas (always)
Team of 4 in class really, really sucks ( three is only a little better)
Skills that I will use for the rest of my life.
Team members who will always be friends.
You are the only one keeping you from that silly plastic card.

 

[Hepcat62]

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.

 

[Anti-Hero]

^Agreed on all points.

 

[deadbilly]

Very much +1 on what Hepcat said. Maybe folks who are looking at traveling for their Fundies should start thinking of coming out here!

 

[Anti-Hero]

We bleed blue out here in nor cal.

 

[Rainer]

This thread should serve as a reminder to new students to (1) reflect upon what they want to get out of such a class, and (2) ask their potential instructor(s) lots of questions about how the class will run, how many students will be in the class, what those students' goals are, how much in-water time can be expected, whether the class will involve an intern, etc.

I, too, would have been very disappointed with only 40 minutes of water time per day. That's a real shame and nothing like what we had in my GUE-F class (we were doing 3-4 hours / day in the water, with only one evening in a pool). I had a ton of fun. Sure, the class was difficult, but ours ran smoothly and we all got a lot out of it. While we, the students, didn't know each other beforehand (at least well), we were all at about the same skill level (somewhere around "ok") and all looking to eventually progress to further GUE classes (a year later we did T1 together). We had two instructors for three students, with additional divers handling video. Really worked out well. Shame to read about less successful classes.

 

[Jax]

Wow. That's quite a swing in water temps! Were these all the same pool?

Ya made me look! The Smart TEC confirms the Sol's readings. However, I forgot we were in the Scuba Club's 20' tank that afternoon. That's why the numbers are different; so no, we were not in the same pool.

Spoiler