What is the point of certifications?

[hroark2112]

Here's the best part of certification....almost all of it is 100% voluntary. If you don't want to take fish identification, drysuit, underwater photography, boat diver or zombie apocalypse diver, you don't have to! All you need is an OW card and if you want to dive Nitrox, a card for that. You can do the vast majority of the diving available to most of us with just an OW card.

 

[Foxfish]

I'd recommend a well taught underwater photography course to anyone who wants a good kick start in the hobby. What you learn on a course doesn't necessarily have to be safety related to be of value.

 

[TMHeimer]

When I got my OW certification back in 91, my instructor actually told me NOT to take any more classes. Think about that for a minute. His advice was not to take additional classes. How vastly different is that from what you normally read on SB. His advice to me was to go diving ASAP while all the training he provided was fresh in my mind. So the very next weekend my buddy and I rented some gear and tanks and off to Florida we went to dive the areas of the springs and rivers that was appropriate for OW diving. Soon after I was in the Keys diving with some friends and then started diving off the coast of NC on a regular basis. I became hooked and purchased my own gear and have been diving ever since

I did ask him about other courses but his answer was basically this, "I have taught you skills and given you the basic knowledge you need to dive. What I can't give you is experience. That you have to earn. If you need any additional classes, I didn't do my job." Eventually I decided to get AOW because I was being told some operators want you to have it so I went back to my instructor and he said sure, no problem. He could see why someone would want that cert. We did that and basically just repeated dives I had already been doing. By the time I got my AOW, I had numerous wreck dives, night dives, cavern dives, dives to 100+ ft. etc. with no additonal classes. I believe my instructor was a top notch one. He gave me good fundamentals to build on and I have done that over the years. Now would I go cave diving without the course? Absolutely not. Some areas of diving I don't believe should be self taught and that is one of them although I'm sure that's exactly how the early guys did it before there was a course.


By in large I found recreational scuba diving to be pretty easy to learn and I still believe that to be the case. A good open water instructor and some common sense will take you a long way.

A lot of what you say makes sense. But what about Rescue skills? Did your instructor include all of those you would learn in a Rescue Course? If not, do you dive with people who have the skills? And also if not, do you have any second thoughts about diving without such skills?

 

[bracko]

Sphillips3, you are not wrong.

Name me another activity that is so restrictive?

---------- Post added February 8th, 2014 at 08:13 PM ----------

Hunting
Boat/water craft driving
race car driving

all can kill you and all have a reasonable level of technical proficiency required to conduct the sport safety.

the only certifications you *need* are the OW and deep. after that all you are doing is learning a new skill. EAN, deco, rebreathers...

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

All kidding and trolling aside, certification doesn't necessarily equate competence. The forum has myriad number of threads attesting to how bad "those other divers" are. Certification provides a starting point to assuage powers that be that people who dive have some measure of training.

Yes but a "certification" in any sense should mean competence.
To me that's the whole point.
All they would have to do is make sure that those students can handle the drills throughout the pool and open water, not just once and hope nothing goes wrong. They should be doing a mask-off and breath about 5 cycles on each dive to prove they have it down. Maybe even do a mask switch. They should be doing air shares on all check out dives not just once. They should have their weighting down and prove they can hold a 15' stop for 3 minutes in the water column on each dive, plus a lot more. If it takes 5 or 6 check out dives then maybe they need to go to that, but the way it is now sucks!
I also don't think it would be a terrible thing if a divemaster came up behind them after they've been practicing all these skills for a while and ripped their mask off their face by surprise. A pissed off sea lion can do a lot worse things!

Think about it, after so called certification they can buy air, they can buy gear, there's nothing stopping them from going out into the big bad ocean on a semi crappy day and doing a real dive.
That "certification" they just got, in their minds could give them a false sense of competency ("Well I just got this card so it must mean I know what I'm doing") and so they can go and do any dive they want. They also might get in serious trouble if they don't have at least some mediocre skills.

 

[NAM001]

I couldnt agree more, Once you get your aow and nitrox. No one cares but you. You either measure yourself by the number of cards you carry and never use, or, you measure yourself by your compitancy. You take a course to make you better for your self and not better for someone else. Yes there are some exceptions to that. The only real need for certs is for legality issues. I say this because the cert only says what you attetnded, not what you retained.

I'd recommend a well taught underwater photography course to anyone who wants a good kick start in the hobby. What you learn on a course doesn't necessarily have to be safety related to be of value.

 

[BDSC]

A lot of what you say makes sense. But what about Rescue skills? Did your instructor include all of those you would learn in a Rescue Course? If not, do you dive with people who have the skills? And also if not, do you have any second thoughts about diving without such skills?

We did spend a little time on some of the basic skills like how to handle an unresponsive diver both below and on the surface and I'm sure we touched on a few more things but no doubt it wasn't as in depth as actually taking a rescue diver course. While I never did the classroom part, a few times I assisted my instructor with classes at our local quarry if he needed an extra "body" but that has been many years ago. I know that some of the people I dive with have taken a rescue course while I'm sure others probably have not. I have no problem diving with folks who have not had that class.

When I was certified, I'm pretty sure my instructor just added the extra time we spent doing some basic rescue skills. He was one of those guys who thought everyone should learn a few of the basics of rescue and that it should be taught at the OW level even though it wasn't officially part of the course. Since I'm pretty sure that's not added in as extra stuff anymore, even if an instructor wanted to not sure they would, I can see the value of taking the course if a person wanted it.

 

[scubastingray]

Boat/water craft driving
race car driving

Neither of these require certifications in most cases. Want to drive a race car? Go by one and sign the liability waiver at a track. I remember doing the "boater safety" for FL when I was younger, which was only required for minors. 25 and want to drive a cigarette boat? Knock yourself out. No card needed

 

[Lorenzoid]

Rescue and others may be great courses to take, but I wish the word "certification" wasn't used for these courses. In my view, a "certification" is something demanded by a dive professional as a condition for the dive professional facilitating you diving. I've never heard of anyone requiring a Rescue cert over and above an OW or AOW cert as a condition for doing a dive, getting a fill, etc. I suppose it's possible that someone could. They would be hurting for business, though, if they required Rescue where their competitors were only requiring AOW.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Here's the best part of certification....almost all of it is 100% voluntary. If you don't want to take fish identification, drysuit, underwater photography, boat diver or zombie apocalypse diver, you don't have to! All you need is an OW card and if you want to dive Nitrox, a card for that. You can do the vast majority of the diving available to most of us with just an OW card.

I agree, most ot these cards and titles are rediculous.
The only other one besides OW that may be needed on things like charter boats and maybe some chartered or guided advanced dive sites would be AOW.