3 Day wonder certifications

[Cudabait]

Reefraff and Pipedope have hit some good areas...Pipedope could have added conditioning to his continuing education list.

Also, It seems that current statistics show that diving, overall, today is safer than it was, say thirty or forty years ago. We now have thousands of divers worldwide ( most started out as 3 day wonders) Even with increasing numbers of divers, the percentage of fatalities, if not actual numbers of fatalities, seem to be decreasing. I guess training and certification has paid off. However, nothing is is always perfect, and, as Pipedope implied...there is always room for improvement.

Regards,

 

[divinglife]

Man, how can you possibly generalize like that???? I took a 4 day course with my sis at a resort and thought it turned out GREAT!!! It was just the 2 of us with nothing better to do at this teenage-unfriendly resort and we had a great instructor who seemed to really enjoy teaching us. It totally turned me on to diving and I went straight to AOW in COLD COLD Montreal, Canada. Which by the way, I didn't kill myself changing environments like that. It has NOTHING to do with length of course, and EVERYTHING to do with instructor, student, and dedication on both of their parts. Its about getting people excited, isn't that how you get children to learn new things too.

 

[Dive Source]

crispos once bubbled...

Market conditions in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) require that we deliver the scuba course in a weekend at a very competitive price. Anyone think differently?

I

I will start by saying that I know Crispos and respect him so please don't get me wrong Cris if I "think differently".

First I would argue that not all shops in the GTA follow this model and I know several who do not do this for ALL their classes.

Shops that soley rely on price and speed to generate sales should stop now and again and ask themselves why? .

Most people understand that taking a training course ( from figure skating to ski lessons) takes a certain amount of time and will cost a certain amount of money. Most people also want to know they are being trained safely and properly, more so than they want to hear about how cheap and how quickly it can be done. ( I said most not all..as some only look at price and are too arrogant or to naive to look at the big picture)

Now I won't say a weekend course is something that should never be taught, as they can work well for the right group of students if taught correctly. But they don't work for everyone who walks through your door just like one type of mask does not fit everyone who tries it on.

Sure every shop does course promotions/dioscounts now and then, which is part of business. However shops that do nothing but flog ridiculous low priced courses year round, then have extra hidden charges are just sleazy.

I'm not pointing a finger anywhere or painting myself a halo, but if you lose money on your courses it has to come from somewhere else.

 

[lamont]

I took a 5-day (2-weekend) class. I don't think it was any worse than most of the other BOW courses based on what I've read here. We didn't get enough time on bouyancy, weighting and finning techniques but neither does anyone else it sounds like. However, we actually did things like disconnecting the low pressure inflator in the case it gets stuck. Whenever we did an OOA ascent (either with a buddy or the CESA) then the instructor had us do oral inflation of the BCD at the surface like it was real. Based on what I've read it sounds like what I learned in the class was actually above average for a PADI BOW.

I don't feel totally confident with being in the water after only taking that course, but I don't think I've read of any BOW courses that are good enough for that. My plan is to take some drysuit training, then take either PADI and/or SSI AOW courses and eventually a DIR-F course.

 

[Warren_L]

fgray1 once bubbled...
You made my point
I know I've been on dives where it was obvious who was the 3 day wonders.

I would beg to differ here - Becky's experience seemed like it had more to do with poor instructing than the 3 day course itself. In the end a lot of it is about the instructor, his/her abilities and attitude. And be it a 3 day or a 3 week course, a good instructor can make all the difference.

The other thing that I think you are missing here also is that diver education can and likely continues beyond any initial 3 day course through continued education and diving experience. I believe that a diver who continues to learn, practice and hone their dive skills can be come good divers regardless of how they started, 3 day wonder course or not.

 

[d33ps1x]

You'll hear it said a lot that an open water cert is a license to get air fills and continue your education, both on your own, and with continued diver education.

One thing I would say about the 3 or 6 week style course is that I believe it allows you more time to absorb smaller chunks of information which offers a better opportunity for retention of information in my opinion.

A lot of students pass the 2 or 3 day course but it would be interesting to retest 2/3 day students vs 3/6 week students 10 weeks or so after their classes and see how much they retain.

My bet would be on the latter.

 

[DORSETBOY]

Would have to agree with a lot of people here (there's always a 1st for anything!) and place instructor quality and the way that they teach students on an individual basis over what agency they are and how long the course is.
The rescue diver (PADI) course although norm taught over 3 days should still be extremely intensive for the student. Personally, if I teach 4+ students on the PADI OW I dont like to do the course over anything less than 4 days but that's just personal choice on the basis of the way I like to teach.

 

[fgray1]

D33PS1X

I would love to see the differance.
All I know is when it comes to my life and saftey I would prefer to err on the side of caution.
But I know that there are those that will take any risk no matter the cost or loss of someone else.
And there are those that think they have the right to do so.
We are taught that in diving you can and should call the dive for any reason and it sounds from some responses here that you end up on a boat with all solo divers. So much for the buddy system.
You guys are right. In a perfect world with perfect instuctor and all people having the same intelegance and learning under the same conditions a 3 day course would be fine. When you find that place let me know.
Do you guys realize there are 20 differant certifing agencies now all with differant standards of instuction. Maybe that's the problem.

Fred

 

[o2scuba]

cmcarver once bubbled...
I think the key to these classes are that there are two certifications they could be talking about in being certified in one weekend. The first being Padi Scuba Certified then there is Padi Open Water Certified. It is a lot easier to pass someone as the Scuba Certified which doesn't require the open water checkout dives.

I beleive the Padi Scuba Certified is just the Classroom and Pool. I don't remember fully but I think that gets you a cert that no one will really trust unless you use it to practice with a Instructor before you OW.

The PADI "SCUBA Diver" cert requires:
modules 1,2 and 3 in the classroom
Modules 1,2 and 3 in the pool
open water training dives 1 and 2
200 yard swim
10 minute surface float
most of the dive flexable skills.

Successful completion of this program allows a person to dive under the supervision of a dive pro ONLY. Many operators will require a pool review session prior to open water dives.

The program was developed mainly for those divers who do repeated resort courses on vacations. By having this cert, they gain more knowledge and do not have to repeat the resort program on each vacation. This also puts the OW cert within closer reach, thus incentive to complete OW.

Even tho this program includes about 75% of the full OW cert, I have seen operators who complete the program in just one day. Even worse, many students are given their classroom materials (books, video etc) the day before.

These same operators offer the OW program over 3 days. Again, many students receive materials the day before.

I think it is a lot to expect of anyone to read, and absorb the material in such a short time. Not to mention completion of the kRs. Many operators do not include the OW diver video in the package. They show the video during class time which allows virtually no time for teaching (lectures).

Well, the ski lifts open in about a half hour, gotta run. More later
Andrew

 

[cmcarver]

I too took the 2-weekend class. I didn't feel rushed thru that class but could see that nearly 1/2 of the class was. We had 1 guy that had problems in the classroom that really took forever and I don't think he really understood the RDP at all. Then they got in the pool and he did well except with the equipment removal where the instructor had to hold him down to get the WB back on. Then there were 2 others in the class who just couldn't get any of the skills done on the first 3-4 attempts. Fortunately the LDS that gave the class allows for students to keep coming back to the class until they do their Check Out Dives at no additional charge for both Classroom and Pool. In fact we had 3 people in the pool doing practice that weren't in the class except for several of the exercises they felt they needed help with.

2 weeks later when I did my Check Outs, 3 people of the 8 where at the Quarry. It was the several I figured it would be by their comfort levels in the pool. After we finished dive 4 the Instructor graciously invited us back any time if we wanted to practice any skills or just have someone to dive with saying he is there every weekend. He said he was more than willing to work with any of us if we felt we needed help. One of the ladies in our group had been coming down there fore about 5 weeks straight with him to work on her skills and that weekend was working on her weight and trim in the water. Our instructor was very nice.

The classroom and Pool was a different instructor than the checkout dive but both made me feel like I was welcome back anytime to practice skills. The only charge for the extra pool time would have been $15 for all the equipment needed. I just hope there are a lot of LDS that use this policy