The Cosmicist
Contributor
I'm not an instructor (with 0-24 dives, you don't say?), but I did just take AOW and Nitrox last month. My perspective as a new diver and someone who just took AOW might help, or might not. This might just be a Cosmicist journal entry to the internet. Anyways, my AOW experience was terrible, and this is my opinion from outside the industry looking in:
1. As most everyone here has detailed, diving courses are instructor-dependent, both in the sense of upholding standards and in truly passing along useful knowledge to students. Instructor quality is top priority, so I'm putting it first here. For AOW, I really think it's all on the instructor because the course material is anemic. Unfortunately, I have high standards for instructors. My OW and AOW instructors tied their own noose when it comes to repeat business. I will preface everything else with that... The instructors I know did not teach my AOW/Nitrox well. This does not mean the course is bad (although it is), but for the instructors on here, this is my perspective of what makes a course bad because of bad instructors. Allow me to list it all:
After taking the NAUI online AOW course, I found it was 50% review, 35% fluff, and 15% helpful information. Honestly, AOW should be the ending portion of OW. No OW1 and OW2, just OW period. As an OW diver, I was qualified to plan and execute dives with my buddy in similar conditions, right? If any agency really expects that to be the case in real life, they need to expand OW diver training standards. Training agencies have to deal with the lowest common denominator; it's just a fact. In my opinion, the standards are way too low. Have the student spend an extra hour reading about types of diving in the online class and request to try those dives. Or simply offer a few from the list as a standard. Would it make OW class a day longer? Maybe. Is that bad? No. Everything else can pretty much be covered in normal OW class.
3. As mentioned on here, the name Advanced Open Water is a misnomer. It should be named Advancing Open Water Skills, or "Introduction to Specialty Courses", "Specialty Course Taste-Tester", "Where Do You Want To Spend Your Money Next?", or "The Cosmicist has to take this course because the boat won't let him on otherwise". You barely go from learning how to put on your fins to putting them on the correct feet. It does little to educate new divers like me. Taking AOW right after OW? Nothing advanced about that. Either raise the standards for OW and get rid of AOW, or raise the standards for AOW to actually make it advanced. Here's an idea for agencies looking for revenue. Make it similar to GUE Fundamentals! That'll make it "advanced" for most people, legitimately useful, and competitive in the market.
TL,DR: My AOW experience did little to advance my knowledge and skills much at all. I'm a big boy, though, so I compartmentalize my experience from the course and agency. I simply won't dive with those people again. Ever. Good thing I'm an autonomous person and had already taught myself past the course material. Oh, speaking of the AOW course itself, it's useless.
1. As most everyone here has detailed, diving courses are instructor-dependent, both in the sense of upholding standards and in truly passing along useful knowledge to students. Instructor quality is top priority, so I'm putting it first here. For AOW, I really think it's all on the instructor because the course material is anemic. Unfortunately, I have high standards for instructors. My OW and AOW instructors tied their own noose when it comes to repeat business. I will preface everything else with that... The instructors I know did not teach my AOW/Nitrox well. This does not mean the course is bad (although it is), but for the instructors on here, this is my perspective of what makes a course bad because of bad instructors. Allow me to list it all:
- they were stressed and disorganized
- clearly disagreeing on something personal (married couple)
- didn't pay attention to their little daughter
- I did Nitrox cert simultaneously, and never breathed a single breath of Nitrox the whole weekend. No, it's not required, but it showed me they do the bare minimum. They didn't even review the material with me. I had to remind them 4 times to analyze a tank with me. Oh yes, a tank of AIR. After the final dive and they were packing up. Can't throw in an actual tank of Nitrox for anything? Come on.
- I was severely under-weighted during one of the dives, to the point where I was swimming 180 degrees down, fins toward the surface, trying to stay down during a safety stop. My instructor didn't bother helping me during the dive, and I had to nag her for more weight afterwards. And yes, I made quite sure that the floaty BCD was completely void of air. I bought a full set of gear after the class - none of it from them.
- I learned more from the former and current commercial divers that were "DM"s (air quotes) helping along the way. In fact, my main instructor abdicated responsibility for teaching me search and recovery methods to one of these commercial divers. He's not a qualified DM, but was a combat arms vet like me and had his ___ together. I'd rather dive with him than those (former) instructors of mine.
- They were also teaching a small OW group. I remembered everything from my class, and noticed that they didn't bother teaching them to stay off the bottom, or even to stay horizontal. The other commercial diver was training to be a DM, and the instructor let him teach all of the rescue and emergency portions of the OW class. He sat 100m away in the shade, completely away from it all.
- That's enough complaints. Yes, there was more.
After taking the NAUI online AOW course, I found it was 50% review, 35% fluff, and 15% helpful information. Honestly, AOW should be the ending portion of OW. No OW1 and OW2, just OW period. As an OW diver, I was qualified to plan and execute dives with my buddy in similar conditions, right? If any agency really expects that to be the case in real life, they need to expand OW diver training standards. Training agencies have to deal with the lowest common denominator; it's just a fact. In my opinion, the standards are way too low. Have the student spend an extra hour reading about types of diving in the online class and request to try those dives. Or simply offer a few from the list as a standard. Would it make OW class a day longer? Maybe. Is that bad? No. Everything else can pretty much be covered in normal OW class. 3. As mentioned on here, the name Advanced Open Water is a misnomer. It should be named Advancing Open Water Skills, or "Introduction to Specialty Courses", "Specialty Course Taste-Tester", "Where Do You Want To Spend Your Money Next?", or "The Cosmicist has to take this course because the boat won't let him on otherwise". You barely go from learning how to put on your fins to putting them on the correct feet. It does little to educate new divers like me. Taking AOW right after OW? Nothing advanced about that. Either raise the standards for OW and get rid of AOW, or raise the standards for AOW to actually make it advanced. Here's an idea for agencies looking for revenue. Make it similar to GUE Fundamentals! That'll make it "advanced" for most people, legitimately useful, and competitive in the market.
TL,DR: My AOW experience did little to advance my knowledge and skills much at all. I'm a big boy, though, so I compartmentalize my experience from the course and agency. I simply won't dive with those people again. Ever. Good thing I'm an autonomous person and had already taught myself past the course material. Oh, speaking of the AOW course itself, it's useless.
