Going from Rescue to Instructor in one go?

[leerobson]

Hi all, I'm in the process of planning a trip to Koh Tao to get the experience I need to get a job in the industry.

I'm currently Advanced Open Water with about 35 dives.

My main objectives are to improve my skills (especially dive leading) and make myself as employable as possible.

I am currently considering an 8 week working divemaster internship followed by the instructor course and MSDT. This is with Crystal Dive in Koh Tao. Has anyone else gone this route of a relatively crash course and found work as an instructor afterwards?

How will dive shops view this approach to gaining the qualifications? Would I be better served by doing a longer internship of just the divemaster?

I was originally thinking about doing a 6 month trip to Mexico which involved 3 months doing ecological surveys on the reefs there followed by the divemaster course and a 3 month placement in a dive shop.

I just feel that if I don't get the instructor qualifications now I will never have the time and money to do them in the future! If I can't find work instructing I will volunteer on some similar marine research projects to get my number of dives up before trying again.

All comments, criticism and encouragement really welcomed!

 

[String]

Personally i dislike "zero to hero" type courses. It produces divers with limited experience who can only teach or guide within the very narrow conditions and environment they did their training in.
The longer the internship with the more exposure to all aspects of guiding and courses the better it is.

 

[Hank49]

If you're working at a dive shop in a resort area with high traffic, you'll get a lot of experience leading dives as a dive master. It makes going to instructor easier also because you'll be assisting teaching too on a daily basis.
In that environment you pretty much are around diving all day long every day, not just weekends. Exposure is hours.
I think it's a good way to learn. More exposure.
If you move back to the UK, you'll have to practice the cold water gear and local diving but that's not that big of a deal.

 

[Cave Diver]

I just feel that if I don't get the instructor qualifications now I will never have the time and money to do them in the future! If I can't find work instructing I will volunteer on some similar marine research projects to get my number of dives up before trying again.

If this is what you really want to do and you don't know when you'll have the time or money to do it, I'd say go for it.

BUT keep in mind at 35 dives, you barely know much yourself. Much less what you want to do with diving or how to teach others to dive. Even if you become an instructor, you'll have just the bare minimum of experience and skills.

I want an instructor that can answer those off the wall questions I throw out there. Someone that has real world experience and can tell me from a personal view rather than read something out of a book. If you go this route, I would highly suggest that you keep the teaching to a minimum and spend as much time diving as you can to build both the depth and breadth of your experience in different conditions.

I also personally dislike instructors who only log pool and training dives. If you find yourself unable to get out and dive beyond the level you're teaching me at, then that's not someone I want teaching me how to do something.

The "zero to hero" courses can work. Just recognize the limitations of them and the fact that just because you leave them an instructor doesn't mean you're ready for everything.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I am currently considering an 8 week working divemaster internship followed by the instructor course and MSDT. This is with Crystal Dive in Koh Tao. Has anyone else gone this route of a relatively crash course and found work as an instructor afterwards?

Well I do not see MSDT listed on their web site, but I would point out that most IDC's run a MSDT Prep course, where you show 10 logged dives in 5 or 6 Specialties, and your Course Director "teaches" you how to teach those Specialties.

With PADI you may only count dives once, meaning a deep dive on a wreck with a camera can only be counted as a logged dive towards one Specialty; Deep, Wreck or Photo. I do not believe I was allowed to count the AOW Deep Dive as one of my 10 deep dives towards the MSDT Prep course (etc.).

That means about 50 of your "fun dives" during your internship should be the right "fun dives."

So after the MSDT Prep course you can teach 5-6 Specialties, but you will not be MSDT until after you have signed off 25 certifications (and sent in the Application / Fee).

I went through a non internship program in the Florida Keys, and then was working as an Instructor for a dive shop in Hawaii within 6 months. Hawaii and the Florida Keys are fairly similar diving; where are you hoping to work?

I did their complete Career Development program;
. . AOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 days
. . Rescue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
. . Medic First-Aid/Dan O2. . . 1
. . DM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
. . Dive Theory Prep . . . . . . . 1 (optional - I took day off)
. . IDC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
. . IE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
. . MFA Instructor. . . . . . . . . . 1
. . Dan O2 Instructor . . . . . . . 1
. . EAN Instructor. . . . . . . . . . 1
. . MSDT Prep . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
. . Dive Center Operations. . . 10 (included IANTD EANx Gas Blender & PSI VIP Inspector)
. . Resort Photo-Pro . . . . . . . . 3

43 out of 44 days.

 

[leerobson]

Ah OK, I see what you mean about the MSDT prep. It's one of the things I am waiting for them to get back to me about. It says MSDT Prep and internship...being on the other side of the world does have it's disadvantages!

I tried to post the URL here for the page with it on but I'm too much of a scubaboard noob for it to let me. It's one of the add ons on the instructor internship page nearer the bottom on idckohtao....

I am hoping to stay in Thailand or round Indonesia or Vietnam, somewhere like that.

Thanks for the comments, it's been driving me crazy trying to pick the best course of action. I'm aware that packing everything into one trip isn't the ideal solution but it's pretty much the only way I can do it at the moment.

My replacement wetsuit arrived today, time to start reading some reviews of dive computers....

 

[scadreau]

If this is what you really want to do and you don't know when you'll have the time or money to do it, I'd say go for it.

BUT keep in mind at 35 dives, you barely know much yourself. Much less what you want to do with diving or how to teach others to dive. Even if you become an instructor, you'll have just the bare minimum of experience and skills.

I want an instructor that can answer those off the wall questions I throw out there. Someone that has real world experience and can tell me from a personal view rather than read something out of a book. If you go this route, I would highly suggest that you keep the teaching to a minimum and spend as much time diving as you can to build both the depth and breadth of your experience in different conditions.

I also personally dislike instructors who only log pool and training dives. If you find yourself unable to get out and dive beyond the level you're teaching me at, then that's not someone I want teaching me how to do something.

The "zero to hero" courses can work. Just recognize the limitations of them and the fact that just because you leave them an instructor doesn't mean you're ready for everything.

Consider this: Would you rather have the instructor that has had 100's of student dives so (s)he has seen the freakouts, bolt to the top, spit the reg out etc over and can react appropriately or someone that has 10 student dives but 1000 cave dives? The latter being a much more experienced diver while the former being a much more experienced trainer.

Obviously someone with 100's of student dives and 1000's of regular dives is the optimum, but very rare.

It is an odd paradigm in this sport as it is one of the few sports where training is mandatory but poor training can kill you.

I guess I find myself indirectly arguing that you should have to log more dives to be eligible to instruct. Skydiving in the USPA requires around 250 jumps and a year as an assistant instructor before you can apply to be an instructor.

 

[Peter Guy]

Would you rather have the instructor that has had 100's of student dives so (s)he has seen the freakouts, bolt to the top, spit the reg out etc over and can react appropriately or someone that has 10 student dives but 1000 cave dives?

I'd rather have an instructor who has enough knowledge and skill to understand WHY a diver "freakouts" and knows enough to stop it from ever occurring.

I've written this before: I met an instructor who had 1500+ dives and lots of experience -- but all in warm water and all in the same area. In fact he had about 15 dives 100 times each and really only one set of experiences.

I want my instructor to have experiences in warm water diving, cold water diving, technical diving and just plain "recreational, looking at the fishies" diving. That takes time and, quite frankly, some money too.

 

[AndyNZ]

Hi all, I'm in the process of planning a trip to Koh Tao to get the experience I need to get a job in the industry.

Bottom line for me is this - if you are planning to teach, you should do your instructor course in the environment you are going to teach in.

If you are going to be teaching in Stoney Cove or Gildenburgh - then Koh Tao is not the place to do your instructor course. When you head back to the UK, you'll be too worried about how cold you are to really be focused on how your students are doing.

Most internship style courses actually cost more than doing the same courses spread over a bit of a longer time in your home country - definitely so if you take into account lost income.

My suggestion would be to look into options much closer to home and do your Rescue, DM and IDC part time so you can build your experience.

 

[Hank49]

I'
I've written this before: I met an instructor who had 1500+ dives and lots of experience -- but all in warm water and all in the same area. In fact he had about 15 dives 100 times each and really only one set of experiences.
.

If I were going to dive in an area with rough seas, strong currents, varying winds and conditions and this was the local guy who spent all his 1500 dives in that area, he would be the one I would want to dive with.
If you do your instructor course in the tropics, you'll likely not get dry suit experience, just as if you do it in Seattle, you'll likely not get 2 mm wetsuit experience.
There are many good instructors in the tropics who've never put a dry suit on.
I agree, drysuit, cold water divers overall are better trained. But learning to drive a road grader isn't necessary for someone who's going to be a cab driver.