You may not, but the outfits you go diving with may......
The card is important to operators to show that you have been trained. But the card in itself should not be the goal for the student.
I find it amusing to see many threads hammer about 'the instructor is more important', 'we don't need stinking cards'.
Bottom line is that in this day and age, you need to show proof of training to be able to dive with operators. Getting that proof from the best instructor you can find is the ideal situation.
