3 day or 4 day courses

[oly5050user]

It is much better now that PADI have moved towards Prescriptive Teaching.
New Student orders material, studies it, and turns in the reviews. Any questions missed on the reviews are reviewed with the instructor. There are Confined Water sessions which may be done in two evenings and a test. Two days of Open water demonstrations, you can knock out a course in three evenings and two weekend days.
No more lengthy sitting in a room being lectured. Self study, self paced. So much easier than when I took my course.

Cheers,
Lars

Lars is right on this one..Student prepares(watch's video and reads /completes kr's) before start of course so time is used more effectively in classroom.With an organized ,compentent instructor a ow course acad/confined water portion can be easily done in a weekend.Could be done with a Friday night orientation and module 1 presentation.Saturday am do mod's 2-3-4-5..go to pool for 5 hrs..all academics except for final completed and confined water done..Student can come into facility during week for final exam and go over equipment advise /rental needs for following w/e training dives.If any student is not ready they can go into /classroom or pool during next ow course(usually caused by someone who either did not put effort by completing homeworks or is a poor swimmer)..
Granted if instructor is inexperienced and poorly organized this is not an easy task.
All depends on the right instructor.

 

[roake215]

OK, just my 2¢ (or being Canadian, maybe a nickle).

Aug 89, got my cert in the Red Sea (1 week course). Pretty basic. 8 or 10 students with 1 instructor. Had fun, learned a few things (even remembered them)

Nov 93, wife gets her cert in Jamaica (I followed along as a refresher). Another 1 week course. Basically the same result as above.

Feb this year, my oldest son (13 and you can guess what his attention span is like) starts work on his cert. And another tune-up for me. Basically private instruction (independent instructor) and no real time limit (but we had the time to do this too), 1 maybe 2 nights a week. Pool sessions until you got it right (yeah we spent an extra day in the pool). So we got; theory I hadn't heard about before, concepts I hadn't heard of (weighting, SAC rates, turn pressure).

Guess I've seen both ends of the stick (and know which end I want to be on). 3 or 4 days will get you in the water. See if you like it or not. Remember its all about having fun.

 

[Thalassamania]

Remember its all about having fun.

As they say ... its all fun and and games till someone gets a stick in the eye.

 

[roake215]

Yeah, but you shouldn't be swinging sticks around (got a couple of boys here who don't seem to have heard that enough)

As they say ... its all fun and and games till someone gets a stick in the eye.

 

[Thalassamania]

Yeah, but you shouldn't be swinging sticks around (got a couple of boys here who don't seem to have heard that enough)

Me too. He's great in the water but deadly with sticks.

 

[Papa Steve]

My PADI OW was 2 short classroom sessions to go over knowledge reviews and any questions. This face to face time with an instructor was invaluable because even though I am allegedly smart, some things need to be explained by a person rather than a book or they just don't compute.

We then had 2 fairly long days in the pool, and then the 2 days of open water a couple of weeks later.

IMO this was inadequate to make me feel like a confident, self sufficient diver. I have practised as much as possible in the pool, read everything I can and learned a lot more about the panic cycle from making a few thoughtful ow dives... and I am just starting to feel like I am able to look after my saftey and that of my buddy. Diving may not be rocket science, but things can and do go wrong, there are plenty of accident/ fatality reports on here that attest to that.

What I'm saying in a round about way is go for the 4 day- it may not be adequate but if you realise that you are a beginner and don't push your luck you should be fine.

My experience was similar to yours. For me, I thought it was okay as long as one had done their prep work in advance. There were people in the class that had not done their required reading and they were in "deer in the headlights" mode. I would not want one of them as my buddy. The instructor attention and input was invaluable . .I felt very comfortable in the water. I took this class with my wife. After the pool sessions she still was a little uncomfortable with some of the basic skills and wanted to practice before we went to OW. We went back up to the LDS during the week, got in the pool with the instructor, and he gave us all the time we wanted.
After we got our C-Card we immediately got back in the water to start our Nav Class. One, to learn some new material and two, just to get some more bubble time with the experienced oversight of an instructor.
Overall, it worked for us but the class time really was set up for those who really did the work in advance . . .I would not dive with those who obviously were not prepared.

To offer feedback on the OP's question, I would definatley do the 4 day class but even then, as I review my experience, if I were in your shoes I would be ready to cautiously move forward but would be pretty nervous jumping right in on my own, also feeling responsible for my wife/buddy.