Question for newly qualified PADI divers

[cooperscuba]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, and I'm not sure if it's Okay for an instructor to post a question for beginners, but here goes ...

I usually teach OW in four days (sometimes five days, depending on class size or if someone has a particular problem with skills). Day one I teach just theory (ideally up to and including knowledge development 4). Day two we start confined sessions, ideally completing all 5 sessions, but at the least the first three. Day three, open water dives one & two. Day four, open water dives three and four (plus confined sessions 4 & 5 if they've not already been completed).

I'd like to know in what sequence you completed the OWD course and did you enjoy the sequence? If you didn't, why not and how could it have been better for you?

 

[Sas]

Sat 2 Feb 2008 - Theory class 9-6pm

Sun 3 Feb 2008 - Pool class 9-4pm

Sat 9 Feb 2008 - Three shore dives with skills practice on all of them.
Dive 1 27 mins max depth 4m
Dive 2 25 mins max depth 4m
Dive 3 52 mins max depth 4m

Sun 10 Feb 2008 - Three shore dives with skills practice on all of them
Dive 1 25 mins max depth 5m
Dive 2 30 mins max depth 5m
Dive 3 60 mins max depth 5m

Sat 16 Feb - Two boat dives - one for skills practice and the other involved no skills
Dive 1 27 mins max depth 20m
Dive 2 35 mins max depth 11m

I was pretty happy with how my course was run as I felt I got plenty of bottom time to work on skills. And having one day for pool only but a bunch of shore dives allowed me to practice skills in the environment I was going to be diving in (i.e. the ocean rather than a pool), however the sites were kept easy to match our skill level. If I had to do it over again I would have preferred to only have one day each weekend for diving as I found it exhausting as there were long drives to the dive sites, we had to rush back to the store (over an hour and a half away from the dive sites) to sign off on everything. Also the diving was tiring too as I was not used to it.

My other complaint is that no time was spent on ensuring we were weighted correctly and I ended up at least 10-12 pounds overweighted after OW course.

Edit: Oh I just noticed 'PADI'. Woops, my course was through SSI. Anyway, I think they are very similar and as I already spent time writing my post I will leave it up

 

[fnfalman]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, and I'm not sure if it's Okay for an instructor to post a question for beginners, but here goes ...

I usually teach OW in four days (sometimes five days, depending on class size or if someone has a particular problem with skills). Day one I teach just theory (ideally up to and including knowledge development 4). Day two we start confined sessions, ideally completing all 5 sessions, but at the least the first three. Day three, open water dives one & two. Day four, open water dives three and four (plus confined sessions 4 & 5 if they've not already been completed).

I'd like to know in what sequence you completed the OWD course and did you enjoy the sequence? If you didn't, why not and how could it have been better for you?

Pretty close to what my instructor taught me, except that we hit the pool on Day 1 right away. Nothing fancy, just how to hook up the equipment, how the BC works, how to don all gears, snorkel a bit in the swimming pool, go down to the bottom of the pool, stay there and suck on air just to get used to breathing underwater, then to the classroom for theories & etc. Day 2 - more pool with techniques and drills and more class room. Day 3 - open water dives (2 dives), debrief, critique. Day 4 open water dives (3 dives with the 3rd dive being our first certified open water dive just for the fun of it, and for those who are tired, they stay on the boat). Day 5 final classroom recaps & etc.

 

[Dance4God]

We had a whole Saturday on the class room going thru the material 1-5 Knowledge review plus the final. Then we had two pool sessions during the week. Then the next weekend we had 2 o/w dives on Sat and 2 on Sun....

 

[TSandM]

Not newly qualified, but I still remember my OW class . . .

We did six evening sessions. They consisted of two hours of theory, and then a relocation to a pool, and an hour and a half of pool time. After four sessions, we did a weekend day of OW dives 1 and 2. Then two more evening class/pool sessions, and the other two OW dives. The whole sequence took three weeks.

I liked the arrangement and the pace, but the nights were very late. With cleaning up and returning gear to the shop, we were never home before 11 pm.

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

I was certified several years ago but I had a weekend (sat/sun) of classroom and pool training, 4hrs in the classroom then lunch followed by 4hrs of pool. then at you leisure you had to travel to the shop ( 100 miles away) and do the open water stuff which was also a weekend with 4 mandatory dives.

books, air, rental gear (everything including mask/fins/snorkel), pool time, boat fees, etc was included in the $300 class fee.

 

[Pitchblack]

4 times á 2 hours theory (including chapters 1-5 and test)
4 confined sessions (confined 1-5)
2 days of diving 2 dives per day.

This was during a period of 6 weeks, 1 theory class and 1 confined session per week.

Edit:

I think this was great since it gave me plenty of time outside and inside the water, and not just theory in theory class there was alot of other things we did like watching documentaries and just asking our instructor about his diving in general. And alot of free time during our confined sessions.

 

[maged_mmh]

theory+RDP self study - my request - finished exam with 100% score
5 separate pool sessions
4 OW dives on liveaboard 1week later + extra 2 fun dives (3 days trip)

 

[MtnPlayVA]

Self study for a few days before class - I probably spent about 8 hours. Class on Tuesday and Thursday night for 3 hours each. Pool on Saturday and Sunday for 4 hours each then OW dives in a quarry. Three on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. It's a lot of information in a short amount of time.

 

[oreocookie]

my class involved self study of a chapter before each session, then "theory/review" for about an hour/hour and a half (calling it theory was a bit generous "anybody have any questions? no? ok, here's a story about... and now let's go over the answers to the knowledge review"), then up to the pool for an hour and a hour or 2 hours, one chapter and one pool "module" per night, 6 night (1 per week) with 1 night being used for the final exam and one night the pool was closed cause the filter was on the fritz (the extra pool time would have been review i guess). then 2 ow dives on each day of a weekend after the 6 sessions..

worked well for me. i'm not sure I would have wanted to do all the theory in one day and all the pool stuff in a day or 2. an hour and a half of theory at a time was long enough, we really wanted to get into the pool.