Two Day Certification Course (PADI) ?

[MHK]

AliKat once bubbled...
I just don't think 2 days is enough. Even as PADI diver, I just don't agree with these "2 day wonder" PADI courses. Even for the best students who may do (and comprehend) all of the book work ahead of time, 2 days is still just not enough time to digest all of that info and do all the pool work necessary and then 4 OW dives! I don't see how this is being done without big shortcuts being taken, and a lot of training being left out.

Alikat,

I think your post summarizes why there are heated exchanges on various newsgroups respecting this subject. I agree with you in that you simply can't safely train someone in that timeframe without cutting corners and leaving out training. Accordingly those of us that do take training seriously are left in the uncomfortable position of having to compete against the "shop accross the street" who is offering 2 for 1 training costing $67.77 so the resentment against that business model is often times heated. More often then not when a potential student wants training they know very little about the depth and scope of scuba training, and may often times assume that "all training is created equal", with that underlying premise in mind how does one compete against the backdrop of a business model willing to offer training as a loss leader in an effort to increase gear sales???

Regards

 

[razor]

I hoped I dont get flamed too badly here!

I went thru both types of courses.

Around 6 yrs ago my wife and I did the 2 days a week for 3 weeks and had 8 people in our class. The instructor was OK but we had very little personal exposure to him because of the amount of people in our class. ANother point I would like to make was there were some students who did not take it serious and they ruined whole experience.

We did this in anticipation of going to Mexico for our open water dives. It turned out that I got transferred and we never finished our open water and I was not really disappointed because it was not really a good experience.

Roll the clock forward to last March 2003.

My wife and I took private lessons where the instructor made it very clear that if we did not do the work at home she would not pass us and she made it very clear that we would be wasting our time and money. We did the training and confined dives in four days and the experience was great.

We did goto Mexico for our open water dives and I really love the sport. this was not the most inexpensive way to do it but I would gladly pay twice as much as I did because of the quality and the one on one aspect of the training.

I think that it depends on who does the training, who receives the training and what you want to make out of it.

Just my 2 cents

 

[GratefulDiver]

Back in the 70's when I did an open water course with NASDS it was a few weeks long. There were classroom sessions, pool sessions and open water dives.

When I came back to the sport a few years ago I took the PADI course over two weekends. One weekend was all classroom and pool combined, the next weekend in the ocean.

Before the classroom/pool weekend I spent a month really studying the material. There were however several people in the class who clearly hadn't even cracked their textbooks open.

If you do the really do the pre-work, I think this format is OK.

Bob

 

[Karl_in_Calif]

MHK youre a little off the subject now that you are talking about costs.

The one-weekend private class wonders usually charge $500 per diver, for a $1000 dollar ticket at a weekend cert for two divers in a private setting.

Its not about cost in this case. Now its strictly about cutting corners alone in order to meet a plane ticket reservation.

But generally speaking, I agree with you, that it takes weeks if not months to properly train a diver.

 

[MHK]

Karl_in_Calif once bubbled...
MHK youre a little off the subject now that you are talking about costs.

The one-weekend private class wonders usually charge $500 per diver, for a $1000 dollar ticket at a weekend cert for two divers in a private setting.

Its not about cost in this case. Now its strictly about cutting corners alone in order to meet a plane ticket reservation.

But generally speaking, I agree with you, that it takes weeks if not months to properly train a diver.

When the root of the problem is economics I'm not sure it's off point. In fact, I would say that it's directly on point.

Take for example, as you suggest, that the weekend wonder class is private, although not an absolute. But let's play out your hypothetical. Assuming it's a private husband and wife the instructor get's a $1,000 in your example for spending Saturday and Sunday with a husband and wife team. Given that the c-card is supposedly of equal value as every other c-card it would stand to reason that all of the skills required in a 3 week class, were required in the 2 day class.. All of the "mastery" would be required at the same level in a 2 day class -v- a 3 week class..

It would also stand to reason that the instructor that spends a 3 week class with his students should earn MORE then the instructor that spends 2 days with his students because you must assume that both classes has the same standards and the same performance levels.. Absent that assumption, the underlying structure of PADI falls apart under it's own weight. In other words, you can't deviate from the PADI system because if something goes wrong the PADI system is put on trial not the individual instructor..

At the core, these weekend wonders are bad for the industry taken as a whole..

Regards

 

[TCDiver1]

GratefulDiver once bubbled...


When I came back to the sport a few years ago I took the PADI course over two weekends. One weekend was all classroom and pool combined, the next weekend in the ocean.

But that would be two weekends ... which i would consider the bare minimum for a full OW course. One weekend is no where near enough time to adequately meet OW standards of any agency (including PADI) that i am familiar with, even for a private course IMO.

I know of people/LDS selling the PADI Scuba Diver course in a one weekend format but none selling the full OW course in a one weekend format. I don't teach the Scuba Diver course but you could get through that material in one weekend if you wanted to.

 

[AliKat]

MHK,

Even though I am a DM, I still have a day job and make 0 $$ as a DM. So my point of view has nothing to do with the economic side of things. It is coming from the recreational diver. I don't know what the answer is to those people who are trying to make a living in the recreational dive industry except that maybe some standards be set that regardless of agency, an OW certification can not be less than so many days. I still would not recommend anyone take a course that did all pool work and OW dives in two days. And I would not buddy with someone who did until they had been diving regularly for at least several months. As a DM, I may not have a choice about leading those divers on dives, however, I'm sure they are the ones that will take up most of my time and make the dive less safe and enjoyable for everyone on the dive.

 

[Karl_in_Calif]

With the economics discussions supra, we have gotten way off the main thread, which was the viability of a single weekend timeframe of a private 2-person open water course.

OK, so lets talk about economics for awhile.

Teaching scuba was probably never meant to be anything more than a part-time endeavor. In the 1960s it was taught part time by lifeguards. They did it on evenings and weekends aside from their day jobs as lifeguards. They worked for the beach counties and lifeguarding was their mainstay, which is a basic working class job that did not require even a high school education.

The store owners got involved when they started to market gear, and the training became a convenience offering for their customers. Eventually, their store clerks began to teach the classes, at a minimum retail wage level.

John Cronin was a gear salesman. He figured out that he could sell more gear if he kept the training to a minimum. He realized that he had to standardize the training in order to minimize it. He did all that, much to the displeasure of those who teach a more lengthy course.

Now the question arises, can you teach the minimum structured training module in a single weekend to a private pair? Will they learn enough in one weekend to be safe in the open water?

Economically speaking, you need to own a scuba store and sell gear if you want to earn a reasonable wage in the scuba industry. Teaching it will always be a part time issue, always was, always will be. Economics is the dog that wags the tail, and gear is the primary economics, not teaching.

 

[MechDiver]

Karl_in_Calif once bubbled...

Now the question arises, can you teach the minimum structured training module in a single weekend to a private pair? Will they learn enough in one weekend to be safe in the open water?

No
No

 

[paulwlee]

The main reason that it's difficult to make a living teaching SCUBA is that it is fun (compared to sitting behind a desk 8-5 every day) and there are lots of people who are willing to teach for practically almost nothing.

I'm not an instructor, so I don't teach, but I'm an AI and assist in classes now and then. I think what my instructor pays me just barely covers the cost of the ocean dives, and I used to think that I am paying to assist, because I need to purchase insurance myself. I recently realized that the free airfills and discounts I get from the store come out about even with the insurance I'm paying, so I guess at least I'm not PAYING to do it. But even when I thought I was doing it at my own expense, I still wanted to do it.

My point is, as long as diving remains a fun activity, there will be people teaching for little compensation, and it will always be so, unless the number of active instructors are regulated by a guild or something. (Which isn't going to happen either.)