Let's Hear about Your Bad Training Experiences

[lermontov]

I've had two technical instructors that had not paid their agency dues / insurance. When skills had been demonstrated - they were unable to issue cards. One issue was resolved in a month. The other issue took over a year.

I had a Divecon course that was never completed. The owner of the shop refused to complete the course when I chose to dive outside of his mine on my own time. (His staff are only permitted to dive in his mine exclusively - or by permission elsewhere...)

I had an AOW course where me and my classmate / dive-buddy where doing our Navigation Adventure Dive - and lost the instructor - who couldn't keep up with us in his drysuit / split fins. Each of us had 6 dives logged (inluding our OW Training dives) - and were swimming unsupervised in an overhead environment (mine). After 40 minutes of wandering around the mine (lost) - we managed to surface safely and found the instructor on the surface terrified. As an instructor myself now - I cringe when I think about it.

The vast majority of my training, however, has been professionally delivered.

that is really bizarre

 

[boulderjohn]

I also realized that he had doubled up on specialties which the agency standards did not allow.

I am not sure what you mean by this. Having two different students do different specialties on one dive is permitted by most agencies. In many cases, like the altitude specialty, there is pretty much nothing to do on the dive except experience the dive. If, on the other hand, he had one student get credit for two different specialties on one dive, that is, indeed, a violation of standards.

 

[Colliam7]

I had excellent PADI OW and AOW training so no complaints there. What I will complain about is that I was given the brush off by three different shops in a row when I was looking to take Rescue a couple years after. They all asked me if I was working towards becoming an instructor. When I said no, I wanted to take the class to improve my skills, they had no interest in training me. One shop employee actually walked away from me in mid sentence to go help another customer. That was the end of my formal dive training.

That is really surprising. And, completely inappropriate. I have trouble understanding why a shop would NOT want to enroll recreational divers in the Rescue Diver course. That, at least in my experience across several shops, is the primary market for the RD course, NOT budding dive professionals.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I am not sure what you mean by this. Having two different students do different specialties on one dive is permitted by most agencies. In many cases, like the altitude specialty, there is pretty much nothing to do on the dive except experience the dive. If, on the other hand, he had one student get credit for two different specialties on one dive, that is, indeed, a violation of standards.

What I meant was that each specialty is supposed to be one dive. You can not take the student on a two tank dive and say that since you were on a boat it will count as a "Boat Specialty" and after jumping into the water you were 80 feet so the same dive now becomes a "Deep Specialty" and you saw a wreck so the same dive is now a "Wreck specialty" and there was current so it is also a "Drift."

 

[bl6394]

What I meant was that each specialty is supposed to be one dive. You can not take the student on a two tank dive and say that since you were on a boat it will count as a "Boat Specialty" and after jumping into the water you were 80 feet so the same dive now becomes a "Deep Specialty" and you saw a wreck so the same dive is now a "Wreck specialty" and there was current so it is also a "Drift."

Dude - that sounds like an awesome way to do it! You could easily become a Master Scuba Diver in a weekend like that!

 

[boulderjohn]

What I meant was that each specialty is supposed to be one dive. You can not take the student on a two tank dive and say that since you were on a boat it will count as a "Boat Specialty" and after jumping into the water you were 80 feet so the same dive now becomes a "Deep Specialty" and you saw a wreck so the same dive is now a "Wreck specialty" and there was current so it is also a "Drift."

In that case, you are correct--it is indeed a standards violation.