What is the real difference in certification levels

[KeithG]

... But an AOW card does open up some "advanced" dives that someone with so little experience has no business doing. ... Ken

I don't want to keep you up at night, but there are many places that allow "advanced" dives to people who do not even hold an AOW card. So i would not fret too much about an AOW card being a cheap gateway drug to advanced diving.

in some places the only required card is a visa card. i prefer this option over a nanny state world where someone else makes my decisions for me.

you WILL have the scrambled eggs for breakfast! No?

 

[tbone1004]

he shouldn't, but project AWARE shouldn't be a damn specialty certification. The quote is "protect the ocean with your certification card", really? The only issue I have with it is they turned it into a profit center for pumping cert cards out. Should be a free seminar series that PADI is running through their certification centers for every diver, shouldn't be a "Specialty", but if you want to learn about the specific marine environment, sorry but PADI instructors barely know how a regulator works, so I wouldn't trust them teaching me about marine life. Take a community college course at night on basic marine biology. Probably costs the same as a PADI Specialty course and you'll get much more out of it

 

[scubadada]

he shouldn't, but project AWARE shouldn't be a damn specialty certification. The quote is "protect the ocean with your certification card", really? The only issue I have with it is they turned it into a profit center for pumping cert cards out. Should be a free seminar series that PADI is running through their certification centers for every diver, shouldn't be a "Specialty", but if you want to learn about the specific marine environment, sorry but PADI instructors barely know how a regulator works, so I wouldn't trust them teaching me about marine life. Take a community college course at night on basic marine biology. Probably costs the same as a PADI Specialty course and you'll get much more out of it

And....NAUI instructors do know how a regulator works, you're jaded man. To quote, "has nothing to do with the agency, that's the point"

 

[snowmaker]

I know some really awesome divers who are just OW. I know some terrible divers who are DM.

It's partly due to the instructors and partly due to the divers. A great instructor can only do so much with a student who doesn't care to excel.

This. Heck I've met some instructors that are crappy divers.

 

[tbone1004]

NAUI doesn't require specialties though, that is all I was saying. PADI requires them as prereq's for certain levels and they have just gone overboard with it. These types of things aren't anything that instructors should be teaching, they should be taught by marine biologists. Not sure why you guys think I'm trying to make NAUI sound better, they aren't, they're all in the same boat together, PADI just has the bullhorn. They should never have made Project AWARE a certification, not that they shouldn't have done it, but they shouldn't have turned it into another way for shops to make money off of something that shouldn't be for profit

 

[tursiops]

The point about AWARE/Reef Fish ID, and Coral Reef Conservation (CRC), and Underwater Naturalist, is that it is enough information to get folks sensitized to their environment and possibly enhance the enjoyment of their dives, and can include a "field trip" to let them relate the lectures to the real world. I've written a Distinctive Specialty called Coral Identification Diver that has CRC as a prereq, but is like Fish ID in that it follows the Humann/Deloach books and help people decipher what they are looking at and see their dive differently. I've probably certified a hundred-plus divers in one or more of these classes, and I doubt that even one would have gone to the local communkity college to take a class in marine biology, and if they had they probably would not have gotten the same diving-specific information and enjoyment.

tbone, you seem to equate specialties with gaining skills about diving; I prefer to think of specialties as how a diver can learn more about the things that interest them while diving. That is, diving is the way they get to see things they would not otherwise see, as opposed to diving itself being the objective. I've got no problem with your kind of specialty (although I do think it is a bit much to say that all that stuff should have been taught and learned in the OW class!), but there are more reasons to take specialties than your reasons.

By the say, Self-Reliant Diver is almost identical to SDI's Solo Diver....so I hate to see you dismiss it as something that every diver should be. It gives the impression that you don't really know what is contained in each of the specialties, so act like certain Congressmen do in making fun of research topics on the basis of their titltes rather than their content.

 

[tbone1004]

re. self reliant diver
The PADI Self Reliant Diver Course has been developed to focus on the need for divers to be more self sufficient for those occasions when a buddy may not be around.
During three scuba dives, you develop skills for self-reliance and independence, while becoming a stronger partner in a dive pair or team.

I get that SDI's solo diver is the same, but I also argue that in OW they should be taught how to deal with diving when a buddy is not around, and all divers should be self reliant. If they want to discuss a specific Solo Diver certification, then that wouldn't bother me, but if they do that change the description to "this course will teach you how to safely conduct solo open water dives within recreational limits", but that and the Equipment Specialist descriptions make it sound like their regular OW courses are designed around divers being babysat while in the water. It's an impression thing. That being said, I am very glad PADI put the same 100 dive minimum requirement on it which means they were thinking, though I do find it funny that you need the same amount of dives to be a self-reliant diver as you do to get your IE, which says a lot about about both certifications..... Again, not bashing PADI alone, all the rest of them are just as guilty because at most of the recreational levels the training is all pretty much all the same as far as course standards go.

I know many PADI instructors that are very very good, and I'm sure your course is very well thought out, and I have no problem with it being part of PADI's course structure, I just don't like their emphasis on specialties. I'd rather see someone like you, the guy who wrote the thing, to be on full time staff and travel around to the different dive centers and conduct seminars on it

 

[knotical]

NAUI doesn't require specialties though, that is all I was saying. PADI requires them as prereq's for certain levels ...

Applies only to the recognition card of Master Diver. Otherwise, not.

There are no specialty certifications required as prerequisites for PADI Advanced Open Water, Rescue, DiveMaster, or Instructor.

 

[Edward3c]

...
I know many PADI instructors that are very very good, and I'm sure your course is very well thought out, and I have no problem with it being part of PADI's course structure, I just don't like their emphasis on specialties. I'd rather see someone like you, the guy who wrote the thing, to be on full time staff and travel around to the different dive centers and conduct seminars on it

Why would PADI want to do that, their a Publishing company. All they want is for people to buy the course materials. That's their business model.

 

[TSandM]

tbone1004, I absolutely disagree with your statement that all the distinctive specialties are worthless. One of the best diving classes I've taken to date was a PNW Marine ID class, which is a distinctive specialty developed by one of our shop's instructors. It's taught over about 12 hours, and includes over 1000 slides of PNW animals as juveniles, adults, in mating colors, on their preferred habitats . . . it's an amazing class which adds enormous value to the diving of anyone who takes it.

My husband teaches a distinctive specialty which is basically a gear-agnostic version of GUE Fundamentals -- refined buoyancy, trim, non-silting propulsion, tolerance for task-loading, SMB deployment, and team awareness. It's a very good class, and students have to work quite hard to do well in it.

Underwater basket-weaving may not be worthwhile, but to trash all distinctive specialties because such things exist is painting with much too broad a brush.