Cost for Instructor Rating

[CamG]

Greetings Centralhome welcome to SB! It is exciting to be ready to charge into scuba training. It is very important to be very solid on one's own skills and dive experience. I have found in my own experience that the slow methodical pace has its merit. By taking it one step at a time I have learned a volume of information and practical application. While assisting dive training as a DMC you have the opportunity to experience the instructors responsibilities and ponder the questions that go with the territory. Instructors work long hours for little pay, usually have another job and are always sacrificing for training schedules. It can be a tough way to make a living if that is your intention. These are just the practical things that will work themselves out as you go. I have not tried to discourage you but make you think before investing in the all or nothing, zero to hero Instructor training. I have had the opportunity to work with some really awesome people that took to diving like fish but I have also worked with others that really struggled. It can be very challenging at times. Take your time to learn and decide what to do for yourself. Then go for it. I wish you well and keep us posted on your progress.
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!

 

[Gatorshark]

I will weigh in from a non instructor perspective: I was certified a few years ago and after a week was hooked and was already planning a budget to get me the most advanced certs in the industry!

Non-diving circumstances forced me to stay out of the water for about 6 months. This gave me time to reflect and realize that I really loved... a hobby! An awesome, healthy, exhilirating activity but still a hobby! One that I love but could never make a living on or want to sacrafice other areas in my life for. I still try to dive about once a month and want to better myself in terms of classes, experience, gear, etc., but I don't need to go all out to enjoy this great activity we share! I say go full on with all of the diving you can but don't set a benchmark or goal to achieve other than maximizing your enjoyment. The Titles will still be there if thats what you want.

 

[TerryC]

I am always astounded to see people at entry-level in diving, with virtually no experience, planning to become instructors!

The ludicrously under-demanding PADI entry requirements for pro level courses mean that you 'could' plan to become a DM within 2 months, and an instructor within 4 months. But, if you did so, you would find it extremely hard to earn any respect in the dive community...and you would have far too little experience to be the sort of dive instructor that could offer good, expanded, courses for his students.

Not wishing to hijack this thread DevonDiver but as I am sure you realise, if you take Padi "Master Scuba Diver" then do a DM course you could quite easily have the 60 dives required for OWSI without ever having done a dive NOT under some sort of instructor supervision.
Is this why there are so many instructors who do not teach?
T

 

[DevonDiver]

Is this why there are so many instructors who do not teach?

Is this why there are so many instructors who can not teach?

 

[Kingpatzer]

Shopping around on-line I found any number of zero to hero packages ranging from free + a year of slave labor, to $4500 plus food and lodging for 3 weeks. $4k locally seems about right.

That said, anyone who thinks just going to class can make you qualified to teach, whatever card you hold, is simply wrong. No one with any self-respect would try this route, and no one with any sense would take a course from such a person. Real life experience in a wide variety of environments is the only way to gain the experience base necessary to be a good instructor.

 

[DevonDiver]

I just realized that we are all eager to say "don't rush it"... but the OP (and people like him) probably don't have much understanding of what experience the 'average' Divemaster and Instructor have when they train.

In my case, I had nearly 300 dives (cold and warm water, drysuit and wetsuit, fresh and salt water, strong currrents, low viz etc) before I signed up for a Divemaster course.

When I did my Instructor Course, I had, in the region of, 700 dives. Before I started my instructor course, I had acted as the dive guide/supervisor, for around 250 dives. I was also a qualified tech diver. I also had a wealth of instructional experience from my military service.

 

[Peter Guy]

As a brand new instructor, I want to echo Devon-D's comments. I "started" (and that is deliberately in quotes) my DM in August, 2006 and finished it in March, 2008. When I started I had just over 100 dives split between cold water and warm water -- when I finished I had added another 275 (375 total).

During those 275 dives I spent a lot of time and money learning how to dive and NONE (or almost none) of that learning came from PADI or the DM course. During that training period I took GUE Fundamentals of DIR, Cave training and the beginnings of deep technical training (Helitrox and a fair amount of deco theory and practice). By the time I was finished with my DM course I had become a competent diver, with experience and thus was able to be a competent teaching assistant. (My DM experience has all been in teaching, not resort type DM'ing -- I would NOT have been competent at that -- at least for a while.)

I then was enticed to go the instructor route and I did -- passing my IE 13 months after becoming a DM.

I think I now have the diving experience to be an instructor -- almost too bad for my students, they have to experience me learning the ins and out of the teaching part (although I had experience there too -- just not as much nor as recent).

It isn't a matter of "taking your time" but more a matter of learning how to dive and getting a LOT of experience. Dive warm, dive cold, dive in a Cenote, dive off a boat, dive with a scooter, play with a camera, dive in current, dive deep, take an Intro-to-Tec class, sit in on a Gas Management Seminar, sit in on a Decompression Theory seminar -- learn a lot and THEN go become the kind of instructor who will create good, safe and passionate divers.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Whatever.

Contrary to the vast majority of posters to threads of this nature, there are quite a few good instructors here on SB who went the instructor factory route.

There are pro's and con's to every decision we make in life; if everybody was the same there would only be one way to do things.

Life experience, a love of teaching and leadership qualities are very important too! I know tons of 1000+ divers with experience in every kind of water that sucked so bad in customer service and teaching that the 100 dive instructor was the obvious choice, that is if that 1000+ diver could put up with the politics of becoming an instructor.

I had just OW and a few logged dives when I went to my instructor factory. Are there things I didn't like about my experience? Hell yes! Are there things I learned there that I never would have learned the way previous responses promote? Double hell yes!

If I had done the shop slave route to instructor on Oahu at that time, I would have bailed out approximately half way through DM (6 months or so). If you apply yourself and have the right aptitude the right person can make the instructor factory work. In my 3 months in Florida I made 200+ dives off Key Largo in conditions up to 8 foot Seas, got my Draeger Dolphin cert + 16 RB dives, completed NSS-CDS Cavern and Intro to Cave, declined a job offer from Ocean Divers and worked fill in shifts as guide for Sundowners (referred by Ocean Divers).

When I got back to Oahu I was able to find work as an instructor, before I would have dropped out of DM if I had stayed. 8 years of mostly full time dive work later I have a really good guide/instructor job with one of the highest rated charter operations in Hawaii.

All I knew when I headed to Key Largo was that I wanted to make the ocean my office and take a camera with me most of the time. Now the ocean is my office and I get to take a camera with me most of the time

 

[DevonDiver]

Funny, because in 16 years of diving, I never met one 'factory instructor' that really had something special to offer. Of course...gaining experience after getting instructor certified is a different matter.

I am talking about the benchmark of capability of a fresh instructor... who has done virtually no fun dives and has no actual experience supervising/leading real customers...and has no breadth of knowledge of diving.... and absolutely nil first-hand knowledge (it's all regurgitated from courses).

 

[Kingpatzer]

Agreed Devon.

It's the same in any area of life. Coming from the military, I've never met a ROTC officer who could hold a candle one from the Academy or OCS on their first assignment. But by they time they make O-3 or so, they're more or less indistinguishable. Some are horrible, some are great and most are in-between, but which comes from which program is not something noticeable. They've each had the experience to rise to their potential.

I've seen the same thing in other areas as well.

Zero-to-hero programs do not make for good instructors coming out of the program. Any student who happens to come out a good instructor is a fluke and not the norm. After many, many dives, those instructors may indeed become good. But it won't be the program that did it for them.