Nitrox lessons $150 bucks--Why?

[100days-a-year]

Let's just see why 100days doesn't instruct for a living.$150-$30 for books and materials.4 hrs of my time to teach an average classs ,takes tests ands review.Checkout dives of which you may or may not get paid for additionally depending on the shop.Reviewing gear,safety and procedures prior to checkout dives.Post dive card signing and paperwork.This can easily add up to having invested 3-4 hrs of my time per student for a 4 person class.The $120 usually has a split with the shop.Say your lucky and end up with $250 for 12-16 hrs work.Which usually nets you 30% of the gross after self-employment costs.Anybody else want to work for those wages,not me.Instructors do it for love of diving,the joy of watching new divers discover this sport and certainly not to get rich or take advantage of anyone.

 

[jonnythan]

padiscubapro once bubbled...


Souds a lot low to me!! for an ANDI CSU program, I get $275 per student with a class size of 4 or more and many students continue onto advanced diving activities.. I doteach PADI and TDI programs if specifically requested (I usually get them to take the ANDI program) and would charge less since the classes are much much shorter.

my classes on average take 10-12 hours of lecture (I have had a few run longer with weaker students) and 2 dives.. You get what you pay for (or hopefully thats the case)..

Dear lord. What on earth do you do for 12 hours in a classroom teaching Nitrox? 12 hours of instruction plus in water time for a $275 Nitrox course is insane.

Oh, sorry, it's not even Nitrox. It's SafeAir. That must be why.

 

[AliKat]

I think I probably spent close to 10 hours of lecture "classroom" work in two different sessions (and my Nitrox was PADI). I felt it was pretty necessary...or at least not a waste of my time. It was a lot of good information. I do remember the most painful part being spending until about 1130 one Friday night doing all the math...

I didn't pay $275 though...can't remember exactly, but it was well under $200. I think it was just a little over $100, but I also had to purchase the books.

 

[jonnythan]

AliKat once bubbled...
I think I probably spent close to 10 hours of lecture "classroom" work in two different sessions (and my Nitrox was PADI). I felt it was pretty necessary...or at least not a waste of my time. It was a lot of good information. I do remember the most painful part being spending until about 1130 one Friday night doing all the math...

I didn't pay $275 though...can't remember exactly, but it was well under $200. I think it was just a little over $100, but I also had to purchase the books.

ANDI requires open water dives, not included in the $219 course fee. Not sure if literature is included, but $74 for a couple OW dives sounds about right.

 

[AliKat]

My dives were included, but this was Okinawa, and "cheap" shore dives were always close by It did cover the cost of my tanks.

 

[gjmmotors]

So for 10 hours you went over the calcs for
MOD
EAD
"Best Mix"
o2 exposure
depth in f or m to ATA.
and general nitrox stuff.
If i had to sit there for 10 hours while someone learned how to work a calculator I would have walked out.
But thats just me, maybe someone that needs that amount of time to learn very very very simple things should look into a hobby with less intensive thinking.
-gm

 

[divewench]

I have not yet taken a class, but I have read a nitrox course book. In some instances rather than teaching students how to derive equations from Dalton's and Boyles law it presented little graphics and phrases for a student to memorize and use. Since such gimmicks produce the correct answers it is probably good enough, but it would seem a little safer in the long term if the students came out of a class with a good understanding of the physics behind the equations. Perhaps the longer more expensive classes are attempting to provide that extra bit of education? But I have to admit if that is the case it would be nice for the instructors to allow the students to choose whether to take the longer (theory oriented class) or the shorter (learn to turn the crank) class based on their desire to learn and/or their science background.

 

[AliKat]

Being in the medical profession, I really enjoyed the theory that I learned in the class. Math has never been one of my strong points, but I even enjoyed the challange in that.

You know, some of the divers I have encounter who have scared me the most, are the ones who think everything is very very very simple. Those are the ones that if you start talking dive theory, get that "deer in the headlights look".

gjmmoters, its probably just that you are much smarter and more intellegent than me and things come much more quickly to you...but how is that something that is very very very simple requires such intensive thinking??

 

[gjmmotors]

I did not mean to single you out in any way, If you feel I did I apologize.
However, dive theory is somethign I enjoy talking about and learning about. Most people that you may have that discussion with may or may not be informed divers. By informed i do not mean fresh out of padi BOW class.
By informed I do mean divers that have continued their training and have a solid background in dive theory, and perhaps medical training.
As a medical professional I "assume" you had training in chemistry and math. These basic nitrox formulas should have come easy to a medical professional.

As far as your last question of me....."but how is that something that is very very very simple requires such intensive thinking?? "
I do believe you took it out of context, I was hoping for my statement to read that if a diver finds basic nitrox difficult, they should find a hobby that doesent require as much thinking. ie: pingpong or perhaps snorkling. Because basic nitrox uses many of the formulas that one would use to plan their dive, be it with mixed gas or with air.
-gm
Your post follows:

AliKat once bubbled...
Being in the medical profession, I really enjoyed the theory that I learned in the class. Math has never been one of my strong points, but I even enjoyed the challange in that.

You know, some of the divers I have encounter who have scared me the most, are the ones who think everything is very very very simple. Those are the ones that if you start talking dive theory, get that "deer in the headlights look".

gjmmoters, its probably just that you are much smarter and more intellegent than me and things come much more quickly to you...but how is that something that is very very very simple requires such intensive thinking??

 

[padiscubapro]

jonnythan once bubbled...


Dear lord. What on earth do you do for 12 hours in a classroom teaching Nitrox? 12 hours of instruction plus in water time for a $275 Nitrox course is insane.

Oh, sorry, it's not even Nitrox. It's SafeAir. That must be why.

The ANDI class covers lots of material not covered in most other agencies classes(not an agency bash here).. Its the foundation for next classes.. for all practicality it is equivalent (and then some) to IANTD and TDI nitrox PLUS advanced nitrox programs. ANDI has to be doing something right... we are now finishing our 15 year without an insurance claim against our instructors or the agency.. No one else comes even close... BTW many the important people and program developers of most of the other tech agencies started out as ANDI instructors and ANDI ITS..

I don't know how you could even approach 10 hours following PADI's Nitrox outline.. I can easily cover everything in the padi class in 2 hours with a person who understands basic math, maybe another hour or so for the less apt.. The padi goal is to get people on nitrox with what they think is the minimum necessary and not to scare off potential people. for many this isn't a bad thing because many divers only dive while on some sort of supervision.

Divers I get from other agencies for the tech programs must be able to pass the ANDI exam for the level immediately below the class they want to take.. I can tell you from experience most people fail or barely pass and remedial work is necessary.. for divers starting out from ANDI OW program, some is a review.. MANY OW students get the LSU rating (safair sport diver) with just some additional work upon certification that allows them to use 32 and 36% mixes and never did a training dive with air..

When I run instructor crossovers and have seen results of some pretty experienced instructors and instructor trainers most faill the instructor pretest miserably...

The instructor manual I must follow for CSU (andi's basic nitrox) is around 150 pages of single spaced 8.5 x 11 pages using a normal sized font... This is mostly "instructor" supplementary material and is in addition to the diver manual which is also very detailed.