How prestigious is the PADI divemaster rating?

[Teamcasa]

What will really impress people is a "Dork Diver" card. Will get you all the tail you can handle. They'll be 4 legged of course but hey.....

Like this one?

 

[drbill]

Like almost any other professional certification, PADI dive masters will vary in the level of their skills from individual to individual. I have seen great doctors and absolutely horrible ones. I have seen instructors whose skills level was not much better than some of the better OW certified students.

Personally, I think most dive training these days is greatly watered down from what it was back in the 60s when I finally certified through Los Angeles County. One hears of divemaster candidates who build up their qualifying dive log with descents on the anchor line to 20' for 20 minutes. Others will have dived the seven continents before going for the DM certification.

Unfortunately the only way to really judge the skills level of a DM is to observe them in the water, especially under emergency situations. Most of us don't have this perspective.

 

[ltcmiller]

I earn my first c-card back before padi existed and still am proud to carry that card issued by the YMCA. I am now a padi master diver. I have seen padi instructors I would not dive with and the constant dumbing down the requirements for advancement is wrong. It does seem to be about the money. They promote e-learning as an alternative to classroom instruction and when u go that route the dive shops still make you pay for and take their classes. As a private pilot I know training is important, as it is in scuba or any risky sport, but nothing beats experience and that means logging dives and a lot of different dives under different conditions. I'd never take a class from someone that starts off by trying to rewrite the rules with short cuts. It isn't about ticket punching, it is about learning all you can about a sport. The FAA no longer requires spin training to be a private pilot and padi permits ow divers with brand new cards to move right into aow

 

[DevonDiver]

In the 'serious' diving arena, experience counts for everything. Not just the dives you did, but how you did them.

In the 'fun' diving arena, DM and Instructor is always going to carry some prestige.

Amongst non-divers and novices, Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver sounds pretty hard-core and sexy. ("Oh... you rescue ​people underwater? Like...for a job?")

The other approach is to deck yourself out in black 'H' and drink Kool Aid... prestigious clique baby!

 

[marco58]

I agree with the majority of divers, it all depends on the instructors that you have, not so much with the agency. I am PADI certified and I feel very comfortable in the water and will continue to learn with the PADI lessons because I have trust in my instuctor. He has not dissapointed me with any of the classes that I have taken ( AOW, Deep diver, dry suit) .

 

[TSandM]

marco, it's wonderful that you are happy with your instructor, and it sounds like he has made sure that diving instruction is a good experience for you.

Have you watched the videos that were linked above? If you can do all the skills you have learned in your classes and look like that, kudos to your instructor. If you can't, he has fallen short, and you may not even be aware of it.

One of the epiphanies that a number of us have had is to get in the water with someone who really has excellent skills, and look at them and think, "Where the *&#@ did that come from, and how can I get me some of that?" Until you have dived with someone who can be utterly still in the water, position himself anywhere he wants to be, communicate so clearly that you can hear his voice underwater, and tolerate enormous task-loading without losing one whit of equanimity, you haven't seen really good diving. When you see it, you want it.

 

[HowDidIGetIntoThis?]

I'm still trying to figure out why PADI would create both Master Diver and Dive Master designations. Best guess is that the former is a lower cost way of attracting the bikini babes - you just have to settle for one who is dyslexic and thinks she's chasing a DM. Alternatively, being able to put MD after your name may open opportunities to play doctor with said bikini babes?

I'm probably not the first to ask the question - just too tuckered to to do the exhaustive searching of old posts that some of you do so proficiently.