PADI vs SEI AOW Curriculum

[Scott]

Slight clarification. Adventure Diver requires three​ dives.

Yes it does, correction made.
Thanks

 

[MKrauter]

Thanks for the responses everyone!

@ Jones: I am currently at 29 dives dives, I just got certified in June so I am confident that I will be sticking with the sport. I have tried to get in at least 3-4 dives in a week locally, either at a quarry or shore/boat dives.

@ Jim: I look forward to your post.

@abyss_scuba: Currently I am interested in getting as much diving experiences as I can. Training to me is important because I believe it will offer a good "Checkup" where I can see that what I am doing falls within the right procedures. I am interested in pursuing technical diving, however my current situation does not allow. As such, I am trying to focus on learning the skills and habits that will benefit me as a recreational diver, but will also transition smoothly into technical type dives.

Personally I feel that I am ready, the PADI instructor has not seen me in the water yet but has tells me he would like me to take it to see where I'm at as a diver. From what I understand, the specialties covered in his course are : Deep, Nav, Low viz(Night), Search & Recovery and DPV. The SEI instructor that I have has been the main person I've been diving with, after about 15 dives he told me he thinks I am ready but also recommended getting more experience never hurts. From what I understand he is doing: Deep, S&R, Nav, Low Viz and Wreck (2 of each I believe).

 

[jezellw]

When I started diving about 10 years ago I only had OW from SDI. I didn't see the benefit of AOW. I came to realize that the really interesting dives, like sunken ships in 100+ feet of water, were becoming AOW certified divers only so I got the rating. Interestingly enough, my tenth OW dive, with only 10 dives under my belt, was on the Speigle Grove on a windy and choppy day. I survived a double dive.

 

[MrChen]

I did the AOW course through PADI. Even though I'm a better diver because of it, I wasn't really impressed with the class. It was informational and then we just went diving. We did some navigation stuff, did a drift dive, deep water, etc., but I had already done drift dives at depth and didn't learn anything new about it. Buoyancy was beneficial as we did it at the safety stop. There was no test. We did chapters and reviewed them. It was fairly lame like that. I'm only a better diver because I've been practicing the material, reading the board, and asking questions of dive buddies. There wasn't a pass/fail.

My biggest criticism is that I'm now certified to exceed 60 ft of depth, but I didn't really learn anything safety wise as far as emergencies at depth, so I'm not sure why I can dive deeper than 60 after the class and couldn't before.

GuyHarrisonPhoto was in my class. He started this thread after the class. He got nothing out of it as he already had over a 1000 dives. Dive ops weren't letting him on a boat without his AOW.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/q-...-aow-experienced-divers-open-letter-padi.html

 

[PeterNBiddle]

PPB produced significant improvements in my diving and buoyancy control. I can't see doing AOW without it. I hated a lot of that part of the class at the time. It felt a bit like I was being waterboarded because my mask was leaking and there's a lot of inversion. We had to do the upside down hoop course for what felt like an hour but it was really good learning.

I agree, quality of instructor makes a huge difference. We had great instructors at UDC in part because they were all working hard on their own certs with direct oversight from senior instructors. I think it's harder to hand wave someone through AOW if your performance at teaching it is being judged by another instructor.

 

[Panama Jones]

Personally I feel that I am ready, the PADI instructor has not seen me in the water yet but has tells me he would like me to take it to see where I'm at as a diver. From what I understand, the specialties covered in his course are : Deep, Nav, Low viz(Night), Search & Recovery and DPV. The SEI instructor that I have has been the main person I've been diving with, after about 15 dives he told me he thinks I am ready but also recommended getting more experience never hurts. From what I understand he is doing: Deep, S&R, Nav, Low Viz and Wreck (2 of each I believe).

Once again, I am not knocking AOW but be aware that these are not the specialty courses, just intros. Other agencies allow you to go from OW to the true specialties. Some specialties require a requisite number of dives. And the specialties that you desire may be cheaper (each) than AOW and more in-depth. Say perhaps you want to go deep to 130ft. May a $150 deep course with more knowledge depth rather than $300 or more for AOW to get the intro. Then the boat lets you on.

But you and only you can decide your own education goals.

BTW I looked at SEI AOW training and levels online and they look impressive so their AOW may be set apart from the rest. I didn't realize.

As you can see from the link to another thread in an earlier post...AOW is hot discussion topic.

 

[drrich2]

My biggest criticism is that I'm now certified to exceed 60 ft of depth, but I didn't really learn anything safety wise as far as emergencies at depth, so I'm not sure why I can dive deeper than 60 after the class and couldn't before.

You could before.

This comes up from time to time. There is no law (in the U.S., anyway) saying you can't dive to the recommended recreational limit of 130' on a basic OW cert.

As a blanket recommendation to encourage conservative diving in depths more forgiving of high SAC rates, nitrogen narcosis effects and diver error, it's recommended new divers voluntarily set a max. depth of 60 feet, from what I understand.

You can grow beyond that in a number of ways. Gradually building experience with a good dive buddy. Or a mentor. Or by more formal classwork. In the old days, many divers just got OW, and dove to 130' without any concerns about 'diving beyond their certification level.'

In the litigious modern day, some dive op.s have decided that it would be wise from a risk management perspective to restrict some dives to AOW or comparable/higher.

This leads to long threads bemoaning the nanny state (which I, too, abhor), how there's no law saying that, how such a policy doesn't guarantee freedom from a lawsuit, etc...

It does show, however, that a diver had an additional minimum # of dives, & that a certified professional scuba instructor trained & certified him at a level with a recommended dive floor of 100 feet.

Many dive charter op.s run tight schedules and will not bother taking time out for checkout dives so they can 'see you in the water,' root through your log book, etc...when they can wave you through conveniently if you've got the card.

Just get the cert. (at least if you'll be diving charter boat trips).

I went into the issue much more than Mr. Chen's comments would seem to merit, but I've seen this issue come up before, and tried to deal with the varied issues it tends to raise.

Richard.

 

[WhiteSands]

If you are after knowledge and not just the card to do deep & night dives, do check out UTD's REC 2 program. I think the curriculum is very good.

I am PADI AOW certified. I didn't gain much useful knowledge from the training.

 

[abyss_scuba]

As I write this I am just coming back from having a few "cold ones" with a student. This student knows that they are not getting an advanced card this week end. Their outlook, cool I will come back and try again, but more importantly I learned more about my deficiencies. More important than a card is learning, it can be done through PADI, SEI or any other agency. What is most important is that the student is willing to see that they paid for learning not a c card.

 

[WhiteSands]

As a student who has trained under different agencies I would respectfully disagree. The agency sets the curriculum, protocols, safety guidelines and standards. There is only so much an instructor can do under these constraints. I feel which training agency a student chooses affects his training received to a large degree. Then within the agency he should strive to find the best instructor.