Pro Dive and other IDC's

[baitedstorm]

I just went down and picked up my IDC crew pack from ProDive. I was able to speak to a few people for a bit and what I heard, I liked. As far as doing a weekend thing, I'm not exactly sure what was meant by that. Their course is over a 2 week peroid with intensive daily schedules.
When I went through my DM program is where I did the 6 months of free labor learning practicing, tank slinging, lol....

I havent signed up yet for my IDC, but my plans are to go with ProDive!

 

[lhpdiver]

I just went down and picked up my IDC crew pack from ProDive. I was able to speak to a few people for a bit and what I heard, I liked. As far as doing a weekend thing, I'm not exactly sure what was meant by that. Their course is over a 2 week peroid with intensive daily schedules.
When I went through my DM program is where I did the 6 months of free labor learning practicing, tank slinging, lol....

I havent signed up yet for my IDC, but my plans are to go with ProDive!

If you are referring to _my_ weekend comment it was in no way directed at ProDive but rather my looking back at the time spent in the IDC. All the pre-requisite reading, classroom sessions and classroom teaching assignments really seemed to drag things out. Because of schedule clashes, holidays etc some weeks we only got 1 module finished. (I was a class of 1). I would have preferred to have dedicated 2-12 hour days and knocked that stuff off in a weekend.

As for dragging out the pool/ocean sessions (free labor) I don't regret that at all. In the IE you are going to have a set of skills which you need to show demonstation quality. With each of these there are a set of things which can go wrong which you are supposed to anticipate/deal with. It's one thing for your instructor or fellow student to pretend to have a problem, for me it was invaluable to see the real thing with real students. Not just as a prep for the IE.

BTW - my wife took her IE up in Vero. She was the only non-EASE person in her class, and they seemed very ProDive-like. People speak well of that outfit as well. In fact I believe Scuba_Dad went that route.

 

[plongeursousmarin]

Do you all teach or guide full-time? If so where?
Thanks for the exchange. Very informative and positive.
For what it's worth what I liked about Pro Dive when I visited was that there were people from all over the place, I heard all kinds of accents, British, Puerto Rico, etc. which clearly demonstrates that people come from far away to learn there.

 

[baitedstorm]

If you are referring to _my_ weekend comment

:laughing: I was actually just adding to it.... Nothing like being a free slave, like you, I have no regrets either. There are just somethings you can not learn from a book.

 

[gjmmotors]

I think the only negative thing you can say about the training is that you dont get a chance to work with real students. This is not a big deal if you are coming into the program as a DM or AI, and have experience working with students. But I can see some people being apprehensive about going out and teaching alone. If thats the case see if you can do an unpaid internship at your LDS after your training. Just make sure the LDS you choose would benefit you.
-gm

 

[baitedstorm]

I'm curious as to how much should I know how to do before going to the IDC.... Failing is NOT an option for someone like me so I tend to really stress before entering into anything unknown.

 

[WiseDiver]

Vicki,
i took the course for prodive in 98, have a working knowledge of the instructor manual. they will help you in what to find. my problem was the swimming and rescue swimming stuff. my best advice is endurance.

 

[baitedstorm]

Vicki,
i took the course for prodive in 98, have a working knowledge of the instructor manual. they will help you in what to find. my problem was the swimming and rescue swimming stuff. my best advice is endurance.

excellent, stamina is one of my strongest attributes, my good friend said the same thing about the Instructor manual, and knowing the standards well...

 

[matts1w]

Pro Dive was an amazing experience for me. I loved every minute of it.