For clarity, alot of people dont seem to grasp the conceptual differences between PADI OW and PADI AOW. Think of the OW as a learners permit..a necessity to gain experience in the most basic of skills so that you can dive. The AOW course becomes your actual diving license if you think about it. It exposes you to assorted continuing education courses for specific diving such as night, deep, wreck, etc., whileunder the guidance of (hopefully) a good instructor. I teach many of my students from OW training the following week for the PADI AOW. Before you venture into the AOW course, talk with your instructor of choice or dive shop and have them explain the different variations available within the PADI AOW course to your understanding. You really need to have a good idea of the type of diving you intend to do as you progress with experience. If you are unsure of that, I'd recommend you include the deep dive, night dive, navigation, and search and recovery as your core basics. Being a new diver you may want to look at the PADI PPB dive as the fifth core element of your AOW training. As a PADI MSDT, I typically recommend those dives mentioned as my "core recommendations" because on a vacation, typically some dives are not within the safety range of the OW depth limits, you'll probably want to do a night dive which will teach you communication methods and safety related techniques. Navigation obviously will give you the techniques to return from whence you came, and search and recovery is a good skill in the event equipment accessories are lost (yes it does happen). While some are enthralled with the intro to wreck diving, I personally think a diver needs to have proficient PPB skills and highly recommend that as the additional element. I know, people will argue that all this should be included in the OW ocourse, but if you remember back you were tasked pretty hard just to grasp the basic concepts of diving in such a short order. based on that theory maybe we should make the OW course 6 months long and include EFR, rescue and divemaster. How much fun would that be? Dive training and education, at least in the PADI scheme is designed so that you can achieve the goals you set for yourself and get them in stages so that you can become proficient with each individual type of diving whether it be wreck, deep, night, navigation, technical, or becoming a pro. Taking the AOW class shortly after the OW course is recommended by me to my students. The OW course is simply a learners permit to learn to dive. The AOW course will expose you to the different possibilites that await you, give you a taste with supervision and educated instruction and you can actually begin to dive. Take the course..but ask alot of questions first, and do the thought process of what it is you want out of scuba diving, then the pros can help you get on that track. Best of luck with your dive future!
Thinking of the "Advanced OW" as "OW part 2" helps put it into perspective. (I think I'm too literal!)
