Ssi

[Charlie99]

DrSteve once bubbled...
The only thing I want to do now is a stress and rescue course. Don't know whether I'll do that with PADI or SSI - just depends who will offer me the smoothest path to Master Diver (or equivalent)given my current certs and experience.

Why do you want a card that reads "Master Diver"?

The skills you learn in either a PADI or SSI rescue course are worth learning, but the I don't understand the desire for the smoothest (easiest?, least challenging? least learned?) path to Master Diver.

 

[diverbrian]

Charlie99 once bubbled...
Why do you want a card that reads "Master Diver"?

The skills you learn in either a PADI or SSI rescue course are worth learning, but the I don't understand the desire for the smoothest (easiest?, least challenging? least learned?) path to Master Diver.

One of my dive buddies wants his Master Diver as well. As far as I am concerned, it is a wasted card when I will have a DiveCon card in a few months for me (and already have an Advanced Nitrox card so that I can get my Deco bottle filled).

But if you aren't going the Dive Professional route, that is basically as high as the card levels in SSI go and with all the AOW cards floating around anymore, people like to have something to separate them from the pack. Smoothest may not mean easiest for this individual. Smoothest may refer to class schedules so that the person don't have to take excessive vacation (someone like me who works odd hours would appreciate that). It may refer to the quality of the instructors in the area at the local PADI shop vs. the local SSI shop. "Smoothest" and "easiest" don't always refer to least challenging. It may just refer to trying to fit the class in with the rigors of normal life and still keep this as a hobby.

Ok, Dr. Steve, I spoke up for you:

Please make me out to be the fool or clarify your point.

 

[Virgil]

i had a bizarre experience where i started my OW with PADI and, because of a fall out between those arranging and those providing i ended up completing through SSI.

didn't really notice a difference but my current instructor says he prefers SSI cos it gives him a bit more flexibility in tailoring the way he teached speciality courses. i must say i enjoyed the nav course so perhaps the method works.

 

[diverjed]

the LDS closest to me now is SSI, so I have taken a couple courses through them, but it's not my original certification, I also have PADI & NAUI & tEK.

 

[JeffAustin]

How about skills...

diverbrian once bubbled...


with all the AOW cards floating around anymore, people like to have something to separate them from the pack.

That little piece of plastic isn't what separates you from the pack, unless you are at a bar.

 

[diverbrian]

The AOW card is getting to be like a college education in the job market. It is turning into the bare minimum to allow people to do the diving that they want to do just as a college diploma seems to be the bare minimum to find a job that pays half-way decently without physically working a person like a dog.

I have to have x-number of logged dives in certain conditions AND an AOW card to do the diving that I do sometimes. I can't have any nitrox fills over 40 percent (legally that is) without my Advanced Nitrox Card (ie. my Deco bottle). Once I get my DiveCon card, I imagine that it will sit around somewhere off my person unless I am on a trip representing the dive shop when I will actually need it.

How many people here have recently had to get AOW cards after diving for years because they OW card no longer is considered good enough for the diving that they want to do? If you want to go to the deep side of the quarry: AOW card required. If you want to dive the more difficult wrecks: AOW card and x-number of deep, cold water dives required. The standards are being raised before dive operators will even look at taking you out for certain dives. How long before it becomes Master Diver? Granted for SSI, a Master Diver card is the same as an AOW with the Stress and Rescue attached (essentially) so in my mind an SSI Master Diver card is only good for someone who wants to dazzle an operator to leave him/her alone and worry about someone else.

Still, we talk about this stuff now. What happens when the operators want to see more.

In the end, that piece of plastic isn't important. Skills are important. But, maybe in asking these questions, people are thinking ahead. But, it may be what is required to get you on-board to show that you know what IS important. Just like that college education for the job market in an unrelated industry.

 

[scubaspider]

I know what you mean, ....I recently have been certified SSI OW but at the shop they tell me stories about some wrecks down south, and NJ that you need an AOW or the crew wont let you dive.

It does suck that i just got certified but i'm "restricted" to 60ft. and cant dive the cool stuff such as wrecks and such cuz i'm not AOW even though i've been deeper w/ my instructor.

But then on another note, not to degrade a college education, alot of ppl from my area do not have an education above high school either, yet the field that i'm persuing prefers Ph.Ds, so yes, the bars/stakes are being elevated so, the next thing would be what you were taking about X-certification plus X amount of years experience/dives.

 

[Genesis]

in the computer field is that PhD stands for "piled higher and deeper." Before I ran my own company I got two so-called PhDs fired for their grossly idiotic and expensive (read: waste of corporate funds) decisions - one of them blew close to a million on a cockamanie plan that would have never worked, the other other tried to conceal a half-million of telephony charges that resulted from his stupid decisions.

Both would have run the tab up at least twice and perhaps 5-10x as high had I not blown the cover off their nonsense.

Both ended up getting skewered by the board of directors by this lowly guy with no degree but a hell of a lot more common sense - and expertise in the field - than both of them together.

Any op that won't accept a copy of my log, printed from my computer, is one that I don't want to dive with. I'm not interested in waiting on the boat while they attempt to recover the body of another diver who simply flashed a card to get on board.

Fortunately for most of my diving I don't have to deal with that garbage - I have my own boat.

 

[diverbrian]

I work as a production operator in a good job. I was one of a group of people hired in. Of that group, I am the ONLY one without a college background.

I chose to go to the military and went through the pipeline to become a Nuclear Propulsion Plant operator. I applied those skills and that education to my current position quite a bit. I get tired of employers (check the employment ads for chemical operators lately) making it sound like my current job requires a college background. My skills on the production floor are more important than the paper in my files.

I am not degrading a college degree at all. I respect it a great deal. Most of the people where I live do go onto college as the major local employers are two chemical companies and General Motors. They pretty much want that degree before they will look at you even though they tell you that they will hire with a high school diploma. The market is just flooded, so they have that luxury. It just seems to me that the better OPERATORS that we have learned to be operators. The better SUPERVISORS have the extended education through experience, military, or college (or even other means that I haven't thought of) to supervise.

Like diving, there is more than one way to learn how to do things the correct way and in this case only ONE gives you a piece of paper that says that you took the courses. Diving is a little different. Our LDS will sign off AOW cards for someone with equivalent experience who can PROVE it in their log book. I have a dive buddy that was given precisely that treatment when he came back from the quarry and the owner made an instructor sign for him to dive the Deep Side which he had dove countless times before over the years. My dive buddy just had to catch up with the times.

 

[scubaspider]

I'm not saying that college is the only way to get an education, and is higher than experience. Thus military educated and college educated might be on equal ground and possiblity in some cases military educated will have more experience. In most cases, at least at my instutition education and hands on experience go hand in hand.

As far as diving, of course you have to prove that you have the experience as a AOW if you are seeking that qualification, just like I have recently aquired level 1 when i did my check out dive and hopefully by next week i'll have enough dives for level 2. But I wasnt trying to say that just because you have X amount of dives at X depth that you should become an AOW. If you only dive to 60ft. max and want to go 130ft. and have enough dives to become an AOW i dont think you should get the AOW cuz the experience at that depth isnt present or proven.

I hope that's clear...sorry if it's not, let me know, i'll try and explain better.