To go PRO or not?

Been pondering over this for some time now. I would like to know everyones thoughts and opinions:

I am a working professional and my bread and butter comes from sources other than diving. Right now I hold AOW card with two more specialties (Nitrox and Photography).I was wondering what should be the next step in my diving education and evolution.

Should I go the instructor path? I love teaching and I think I would make a good instructor. It would cost around 4000 $ from where I am presently to end up there. After training a dozen open water students, that money can be recovered.

I do not see myself owning a full-dive operation. Like I said diving is not anything I am depending on to make my bread and butter. There are free-lance scuba instructors who take a handful of students here and there to make some cash. That I believe I could do just to meet new people and share my passion for the sport.

Since I am not looking to make a business out of my instructor certification, is it something worth spending the time and money for? If not what are the other areas in SCUBA where you can grow as a diver? Diving is fun but I would like it to lead to something.

Thanks very much for your thoughts.

If you aren't going to make a permanent occupation out of it, I wouldn't go for my instructor's license. Personally, I use diving as a vessel to explore my surroundings in my search for the new and interesting. Wherever I go, the question is always "How is the diving?" Since you are a journalist, you could write some articles on some recent dives. I've written an article on an encounter I had with a cookie cutter shark once off the coast of Kona.

As far as certs go, I don't really worry about them. Certifications may help develop you as a diver, but there is no substitute for getting in the water and doing it. That is the point of all the training anyway, isn't it? I would suggest taking a rescue course, but I look at diving as a tool, not a progressive series of courses. That's what college is for.

Well....

There are different kinds of instructors out there but I would generally say that doing it for the money isn't the best motivation. Frankly you'll make more money with a part time job at McDonalds and with a lot less investment to get in. If money is your motivation, there are much easier, much safer, and much quicker ways to make money.

Having said that, my experience is that being an instructor has some perks and it has, in fact, lowered my costs to more or less break even, which was my only financial goal. In fact, I don't *want* to make more money than that. The shop where I work for has to work hard for their profit and since I have a good day job I'm quite happy to more or less volunteer my time to help me be a successful instructor and help them be a successful shop. It's a win/win to my way of thiking

... Keeping it at around the break even mark has another advantage to me, which is that I feel comfortable working as much as *I* want to, and to not get sucked into the trap of treating it like a second job.... This is to say, my personal motivation is just to be in the game and to invest something of my enthousiasm in training new divers. I don't care about the money, it's the result that matters to me. I take pride in my work as an instructor and I'm proud of the divers I train... and for me that's a much bigger pay back than making money.

In other words, this is all to say that I personally believe that the work itself needs to be its own reward.

R..

Diver0001 ... sell said , I bet you turn out safe divers that have fun diving and are good stewards for the sport and for our oceans

SeaHound .. good post by smellzlikefish too as and as he said, at least take Rescue .. it will advance your diving and diving awareness

SeaHound, you don't have much information in your profile about your diving experiences, and that would help us give you information, I think.

I will tell you about my personal experience with the same question. I got certified in 2005 and instantly fell in love with diving (which I didn't really expect to do). I charged through AOW and several specialties. It was pretty typical, in the shop where I got certified, for people to keep steadily working through the course sequence, through divemaster and even instructor. One of the DMs who supervised my OW dives had been diving for eight months. I was headed right down the same road, because I love to teach and have always taught ANYTHING I learned that I enjoyed.

Then, about six months after I got certified, I got a big wake-up call. I took a class called GUE Fundamentals, and I was exposed to a level of diving proficiency I had never imagined existed. And I found out I fell woefully short of competence. I realized at that point that I had no business teaching anybody anything about diving until I had figured out what else I didn't know that I didn't know.

That was almost four years ago, and this summer is the first time that I have begun to think again about becoming a professional. I have taken Rescue, UTD Rec 2 and Rec 3, GUE Rec Triox, Cavern/Intro, GUE Cave 1 and half of UTD Tech 1 at this point, and have racked up about 800 dives in a wide variety of sites and conditions, and I do believe that I now have enough good information and good enough skills to be an effective teacher, and to produce students with a good enough education that they will enjoy diving and continue to do it.

I don't want to stifle your enthusiasm, but make sure you have enough of a database to know whether you will be a good guide for new divers, or whether you may unknowingly perpetuate a mediocre standard.

If you want to get into the professional level I agree to get into the rescue class. It was one of the most fun courses I did and made me much more aware of my surroundings in and out of the water. Once through that, you can get into the Divemaster class. Once finished you can assist with some classes and see weather or not you still want to become an instructor. If so, go for it. Nothing wrong with having a job you love, weather it be part time or full time.

Be sure you have the fire in your belly to teach. If it's not there, you won't be an effective instructor regardless of how good a diver you are. My hat's off to those who teach. I am an AI who's served more as a DM than anything else and it has shown me that I do NOT have the fire in my belly to teach. Therefore I will never become an instructor.

Rescue Diver should be your next course--I predect it'll be the best course you ever took. It was for me.

Thanks everyone. These responses will be the foundations of whatever decision I make. I am already beginning to get some very good ideas. I will surely go into the Rescue Diver course and after reading TSandM's post, I also want to look into GUE courses.

Keep em coming and thanks very much.

TSandM:

That was almost four years ago, and this summer is the first time that I have begun to think again about becoming a professional. I have taken Rescue, UTD Rec 2 and Rec 3, GUE Rec Triox, Cavern/Intro, GUE Cave 1 and half of UTD Tech 1 at this point, and have racked up about 800 dives in a wide variety of sites and conditions, and I do believe that I now have enough good information and good enough skills to be an effective teacher, and to produce students with a good enough education that they will enjoy diving and continue to do it.
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So you're going ahead with it then? I knew you were thinking about becoming an instructor but this is the first time I recall you talking about it like it's actually happening.

Don't convert everyone to UTD or I won't be able to perpetuate my mediocre standard anymore...

R..

Well, since my husband has done his IE, he insists I do my DM so I can assist him with classes. If I'm going to do that, well . . . Now all I have to do is decide for what agency I want to teach. It's probably next year's project, though.