Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
It’s up to the individual seeking the career to do their homework before investing thousands of dollars on an education for a dead end job.
If a job was offered with top pay then I’d want a written contract.
Red Flags or Misplaced Expectations?
- Thread starter Dan G
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If a job was offered with top pay then I’d want a written contract.
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Cthippo
Contributor
So, to the OP (Who has probably long since wandered off), all of those issues sound like red flags with that particular dive shop. They don't seem to be invested in you or even following through on the things you paid for. I think you would be well advised to continue your training elsewhere.
That said, I find the whole approach to SCUBA education...curious
Part of what I do for a living is to test aspiring firefighters seeking their initial certification out of academy. You know what the requirements to be a firefighter instructor are?
Be a firefighter.
Yup, that's it.
I am certified as an Instructor 1, which is a pre-requisite to be an evaluator. That class was 4 days of powerpoint, a written exam, and teaching a 5 minute class from prepared materials in front of an evaluator. Many, perhaps most, people teaching academies are not instructor 1 rated (and really aren't losing out on anything because of it, that class is a joke).
In the fire service, as soon as you are certified in something, you are considered competent to teach it. When I was testing for my Firefighter 2 cert there was some confusion about whether I was taking the test or administering it and got written down as doing both. The State Fire Marshal's Office caught that and told the person running the test "If you're that hard up for evaluators, run him through first and if he passes he can evaluate the rest".
So my point on all this is that from my perspective it does look like the dive instruction market is something of a scam. There are good instructors out there (I had one), but that is probably more about some people being naturally good at it then whatever massive amount of training and "mentoring" they receive.
The thing that makes the firefighter certification system work is third party evaluation. There are written standards for each skill and an unbiased evaluator comes in and grades each candidate against those standards. The standards are the same nation-wide and so it doesn't matter where someone was trained, if they are an IFSAC Firefighter 1 I know what to expect.
I feel like offering this kind of system, even on a voluntary basis, would be a boon to the dive industry. It would give people some level of confidence that the person in front of them actually is at least minimally competent in the water, and that that competency has been evaluated by someone besides the person who instructed them. Right now we have a situation where no one trusts anyone elses training or certification, and that is hardly conducive to a healthy industry.
That said, I find the whole approach to SCUBA education...curious
Part of what I do for a living is to test aspiring firefighters seeking their initial certification out of academy. You know what the requirements to be a firefighter instructor are?
Be a firefighter.
Yup, that's it.
I am certified as an Instructor 1, which is a pre-requisite to be an evaluator. That class was 4 days of powerpoint, a written exam, and teaching a 5 minute class from prepared materials in front of an evaluator. Many, perhaps most, people teaching academies are not instructor 1 rated (and really aren't losing out on anything because of it, that class is a joke).
In the fire service, as soon as you are certified in something, you are considered competent to teach it. When I was testing for my Firefighter 2 cert there was some confusion about whether I was taking the test or administering it and got written down as doing both. The State Fire Marshal's Office caught that and told the person running the test "If you're that hard up for evaluators, run him through first and if he passes he can evaluate the rest".
So my point on all this is that from my perspective it does look like the dive instruction market is something of a scam. There are good instructors out there (I had one), but that is probably more about some people being naturally good at it then whatever massive amount of training and "mentoring" they receive.
The thing that makes the firefighter certification system work is third party evaluation. There are written standards for each skill and an unbiased evaluator comes in and grades each candidate against those standards. The standards are the same nation-wide and so it doesn't matter where someone was trained, if they are an IFSAC Firefighter 1 I know what to expect.
I feel like offering this kind of system, even on a voluntary basis, would be a boon to the dive industry. It would give people some level of confidence that the person in front of them actually is at least minimally competent in the water, and that that competency has been evaluated by someone besides the person who instructed them. Right now we have a situation where no one trusts anyone elses training or certification, and that is hardly conducive to a healthy industry.
This is not going to happen as it would cut into the agency's and the ITs/CDs business. The model is set up to produce a large amount of instructors that pay into the system and than to be low skill cheap labour on a constant basis.
From the point of view of the CDs and agancies, the system works great. If they increased quality, fewer instructor would pay membership fees, buys material and t-shirts and the shops would actually have to pay more for labour.
The people who are defending this system (even though they know how it works) and try to keep information about pay under wraps are helping to the standard low.
So it's ok to bash a tiny little mum and pop shop like seaskin based on made up stuff but cooperation like PADI need to be protected. I guess it depends what the sb staff likes and doesn't like.
OP
I was told that part of the cost of my training would be to pay for an independent, non-shop affiliated, evaluator to evaluate my skills as part of the completion of ITC. If I understood this aspect of the instructor training correctly, this is akin to the "third party evaluation" you describe.
Were in my comment did it say anything negative about instructor training or careers in diving. I said it is a niche market, there are plenty of niche markets out there that people work in that the vast majority of the world care nothing about but the a small few in that market can be fanatical about. Also you obviously didn't read all my posts. I've been actively involved in the industry for 16+ years but never as my main source of income and I went into knowing it would never be.
Guiding people on weekends as a divemaster doesn't give you any inside into the industry and I wouldn't consider that working either. Weekend DMs are customers that dive with other customers. When something costs money (being a weeked DM costs money) it's not a job, it's a hobby.
The fact that scuba is a niche market has nothing to do with anything in the thread.
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