Best agency for learning Tech diving - criteria given - honest :)

[PfcAJ]

GUE instructors won't take your money if you are not ready to take a tech class,

You sure about that?

 

[boulderjohn]

GUE instructors won't take your money if you are not ready to take a tech class, and you won't get a card if you can't perform the required skills when you are done.

Here is a very simplified summary of basic educational theory.

If a student has the prerequisite skills required to begin a class, if the instructor uses valid instructional methodologies, if the course curriculum is correctly designed to have students complete the required work in the allotted time, and if the student applies himself or herself to the task as expected, then the student should pass the class. Period. If the student does not pass the class, there is a problem with one or more of those conditions. People who teach a course that traditionally has a high failure rate among highly motivated students doing the best they can should look at the remaining conditions to see where the problem lies. If that problem lies in the student not having sufficient prerequisite skills, then the screening process for the course in inadequate.

 

[KevinNM]

You sure about that?

Well, they might take your money. But your money is shinier and more attractive looking than my money.

I've heard a couple of instructors describe what happens when a student with a tech pass shows up and clearly is unprepared to start the class. It involves angry phone calls to their fundamentals instructor by their tech instructor. I'm not sure what happens when only one student of 3 is unprepared, but I have heard of an entire cave class that essentially become a fundamentals+cavern 5 day $2000/person course when the the whole team had apparently not dove since they got their tech pass.

 

[boulderjohn]

Well, they might take your money. But your money is shinier and more attractive looking than my money.

I've heard a couple of instructors describe what happens when a student with a tech pass shows up and clearly is unprepared to start the class. It involves angry phone calls to their fundamentals instructor by their tech instructor. I'm not sure what happens when only one student of 3 is unprepared, but I have heard of an entire cave class that essentially become a fundamentals+cavern 5 day $2000/person course when the the whole team had apparently not dove since they got their tech pass.

I had a student begin Tec 40--the first course in the PADI tech program with all his own gear and only marginal skills at best--actually a little better than you would expect from a beginning tech student. He eventually got up to speed for that level of diving. I was not until he as doing Tec 50 that I learned he had passed GUE Fundamentals before beginning the program with me.