What is the point of certifications?

[Eric Sedletzky]

If you have your own equipment and a source of air for your tank, it is not against any laws to go diving. Once you involve another person or company, liabilities arise. I dove 10 years in the 70's without being certified. At that time and place I could get my steel 72 filled without certification. Once the dive shop upgraded their policy, certification was required. At that time I was asking the same question your are. Why, after so many years of diving, was I asked to get certified? At that time, liability was the word. I took the class with 9 years more diving experience than my instructor. Adventure-Ocean

In that case you just bite the bullet and go through the motions and get the card.
I always thought it would be fun to go back several years later and take an OW class again just to see how and what they are teaching these days, somewhere that they don't know me. Pretend I've never dove before, you know, go in incognito and "shop" them undercover.

 

[DanLW]

I believe certification is a good thing and is needed due to the fact that many of the simple rules of scuba diving we take for granted are counter-intuitive, and fatal if not followed. For example, most of us learned to dive underwater (not scuba dive, just skin dive) by taking a deep breath, holding it, diving down, and coming back up with that same breath of air. If somebody took that mindset to scuba diving, they'd be dead the first time they ran out of air. Another example is the rate at which we ascend. If somebody ascended from 60 feet in scuba the same way they would ascend from 60 feet skin diving, they will probably get seriously bent. Ascending at 30-60fpm is counter-intuitive, and is not something one would want to learn "the hard way". Consider this: for every rule we are taught in our certification course, there is some poor soul that had to learn that rule "the hard way".

Another reason it is good is standardization. These days, probably every diver has a secondary regulator. And as far as I know, everybody's buoyancy control is hanging over their left shoulder. We all know what we should do if we run out of air (provided we don't panic), and we all know how to safely ascend.

We weren't designed to go underwater for long periods of time. To do it safely, we need to have those simple rules that we all take for granted drilled into us first. Otherwise, we'd all be learning a lot of lessons "the hard way", and a lot of those lessons are easily fatal.

 

[scubastingray]

Another reason it is good is standardization. These days, probably every diver has a secondary regulator. And as far as I know, everybody's buoyancy control is hanging over their left shoulder. We all know what we should do if we run out of air (provided we don't panic), and we all know how to safely ascend.

Right, which is why we've all agreed upon the proper hose length, and even which regulator to give. No one uses BC inflator octos either.

 

[Bob DBF]

In that case you just bite the bullet and go through the motions and get the card.

That's what I thought when I was in the same spot as Adventure-Ocean, but my instructor had been around a while. It was a NAUI/PADI class and he just required a lot more out of me than the other students because of my experience.



Bob
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I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Wannabedivebum]

I find that diving is alot like mountaineering, you can learn by either finding a mentor, taking a course, or just heading out and doing it. Both sports pose considerable risk, both sports offer courses (mountaineering doesnt have certifications besides a couple guide certs and the coveted IFMGA badge...and a few other courses you can take to learn how not to die here and there). However you will soon find you can only learn so much on your own and if you cant find a mentor, you have to take a course. The last place you want to realize you are unsure is at 4000m's while your anchors are slipping and you cant tie a munter hitch...same goes with diving, the intitial OW cert is like a foot into the door, after that you just dive and dive until you reach your limits of comfort and then need to get taught. You dont know what you dont know, and not everything can be learned from a book. That being said these PADI certs for naturalist and fish identification are an absolute waste of money and time. Want to learn how to night dive? dive at night. Photography? Take a camera. Fish ID? just ask some locals. Want to dive caves? just go in a ca....kidding this one is a must for training, get cave certified.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I find that diving is alot like mountaineering, you can learn by either finding a mentor, taking a course, or just heading out and doing it. Both sports pose considerable risk, both sports offer courses (mountaineering doesnt have certifications besides a couple guide certs and the coveted IFMGA badge...and a few other courses you can take to learn how not to die here and there). However you will soon find you can only learn so much on your own and if you cant find a mentor, you have to take a course. The last place you want to realize you are unsure is at 4000m's while your anchors are slipping and you cant tie a munter hitch...same goes with diving, the intitial OW cert is like a foot into the door, after that you just dive and dive until you reach your limits of comfort and then need to get taught. You dont know what you dont know, and not everything can be learned from a book. That being said these PADI certs for naturalist and fish identification are an absolute waste of money and time. Want to learn how to night dive? dive at night. Photography? Take a camera. Fish ID? just ask some locals. Want to dive caves? just go in a ca....kidding this one is a must for training, get cave certified.

In this post above I said I think mountaineering (I called it rock climbing--maybe the wrong term) is not at all like scuba diving in the way they are practiced as recreational sporting activities. The scuba diving milieu is unique, and that's why I think the industry has developed and pushed a certification system.

As other posts have discussed, diving today is practiced by "the masses," encompassing people of every fitness level and people looking as much for a vacation as anything else, whereas mountaineering is still (and possibly always will be) practiced mainly by "adventurer" types who tend to be fit, focused on the sport itself rather than ancillary pleasures, dedicated to learning proper techniques, etc.