Your Diving Career - Overview and Learning Objective

Overview and Learning Objective

Topic 12 Your Diving Career

Recommended Materials and Methods for Covering this Topic

This topic is intended to aim candidates toward a satisfying and successful career in the dive industry, whether they’re pursuing leadership training as a vocation or as an avocation. During this topic, your main emphasis will be on progressing to the Assistant Instructor and Instructor levels, and on additional skills and training that can give individuals a competitive advantage in the industry.

Presentation

Overview and Learning Objective

I. PADI Training to Further Your Dive Career

1. What are six reasons why you should consider continuing your training through the PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor level?

2. How does it benefit you to complete the PADI Assis-tant Instructor course prior to enrolling in the PADI OWSI Program?

3. How does diver-level specialty training help your career as a PADI Divemaster?

II. Other Training That Can Aid Your Career

4. What are six skills, outside of diver training, that can make you more valuable in the dive industry?

III. The Role of Emerging Technologies

5. How will emerging technologies affect your career, and what should you do in response?

Outline

I. PADI Training to Further Your Dive Career

A.What are six reasons why you should consider continuing your training through the PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor level?

1. Because they’re fully qualified to teach classes, instructors have more versatility as employees.

2. The majority of dive boat professionals supervising certified divers are instructors, which gives them more versatility as employees because they can train divers.

Your Diving Career Your Diving Career

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Overview Overview

■PADI Training to Further Your Dive Career

■Other Training That Can Aid Your Career

■The Role of Emerging

Why continue your education?

■Gaining ne w skills and qualifying to conduct additional courses makes you more versatile

■Versatility is what employers look for

■Gaining ne w skills and qualifying to conduct additional courses makes you more versatile

■Versatility is what employers look for

3. Most individuals who move into other areas of the dive industry (e.g., manufacturer representatives) begin as instructors - this experience lets them un-derstand their customer’s needs.

4. Even if you’re primarily interested in leadership as an avocation, not a full time vocation, certification as an instructor creates more opportunities.

5. Increasingly, institutions of higher learning recog-nize the quality of PADI Instructor training. This recognition may apply to opportunities and careers beyond diving.

6. There are more opportunities for PADI Instructors than for any other professional in the industry. The demand for PADI Instructors exceeds the demand for instructors of all other organizations combined.

B.How does it benefit you to complete the PADI Assistant Instructor course prior to enrolling in the PADI OWSI Program?

1. Much of the AI course comes from the IDC, so the AI course reduces your instructor training program load.

2. The AI course applies directly to what you learn in the OWSI Program, gives you more time and prac-tice that will help you be successful in the Instructor Examination (IE) and as a certified instructor.

3. You need 100 logged dives to become a PADI In-structor. If you’re short that number, the AI course gives you more opportunities to dive and gain expe-rience.

4. The AI course gives you teaching and income oppor-tunities by qualifying you to conduct additional PADI courses and programs, including some nondiving PADI Specialities.

5. As an AI, you can enroll in PADI Specialty Instructor courses. When you successfully complete the IE and have ten dives in the specialty, you’ll be qualified to teach the specialties in which you took these courses.

C.How does diver-level specialty training help your career as a PADI Divemaster?

1. Providing more dive opportunities.

2. Helping you gain specialty experience that applies when you qualify to teach the specialty at the Assis-tant Instructor and/or instructor levels.

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Why become a PADI Assistant Instructor (AI)?

■Gain income oppor tunities by qualifying to teach additional PADI programs

◆MEDIC FIRST AID Instructor

◆PADI Specialty Instructor - nondiving

■Gain income oppor tunities by qualifying to teach additional PADI programs

◆MEDIC FIRST AID Instructor

◆PADI Specialty Instructor - nondiving

■Prepare for an Instructor Development Course (IDC)

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Why take specialty diver courses?

■Learn new skills and gain additional diving opportunities

■Gain experience to apply when

assisting with specialty training

■Gain experience to apply when

assisting with specialty training

3. Giving you experience you can apply when assisting specialty diver training.

II. Other Training That Can Aid Your Career

A. Like any industry, the dive industry needs a variety of skills. Becoming a PADI Divemaster, Assistant Instruc-tor and InstrucInstruc-tor provides the base for a successful career, but additional skills and training can help your chances of finding rewarding full time or part time positions.

B.What are six skills, outside of diver training, that can make you more valuable in the dive industry?

1. Boat handling/captain’s license - useful at resorts and boat-intensive operations.

2. Retail sales training - useful in virtually any dive operation.

3. Sales management training - valuable for growth within a retail dive operation.

4. Manufacturer equipment repair technician - certifi-cation to repair specific equipment expands a dive operation’s services.

5. Compressor and/or diesel engine mechanics - virtu-ally all dive operations have compressors, many have diesel engines (in boat); these skills are espe-cially valuable at remote destinations.

6. Writing/word processing/layout/photography -producing store newsletters/brochures.

III. The Role of Emerging Technologies

A.How will emerging technologies affect your career, and what should you do in response?

1. Technology changes rapidly in diving just as in other industries, and the pace continues to accelerate.

2. Much of what you know today will be obsolete in only a few years.

a. Medical advancements are likely to rescue and first aid recommendations.

b. Closed and semiclosed circuit scuba may become more common in recreational diving.

c. Electronics may revolutionize navigation.

d. Physiology may learn more about DCI, leading to new approaches to dive computer modeling, and DCI treatment.

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What other training will aid your diving career?

■Boat handling/captain’s license

■Retail sales training

■Sales management training

■Equipment repair technician

■Compressor/diesel mechanic

■Writing and photography

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What should you know about emerging technologies?

■Change is inevitable and usually rapid — KEEP PACE

■Stay current

◆Read dive periodicals and watching diving-related programs

◆Attend dive trade shows

◆Continually learn about computers

◆Put new technologies to use

◆Be open to change

e. Instruction continues to become more convenient and more efficient by using new technologies such as multimedia computer-based training, online training via the internet, etc. These will expand.

B. A professional-level diver must remain current and up to speed with technology.

1. Failure to do so obsoletes you - you may have diffi-culty competing with new professionals entering the dive industry.

2. In some areas, failure to follow the most current standards-of-care may have potential liability.

C. Ways to stay up to date.

1. Read a wide variety of dive periodicals and watch dive videos and television programming.

2. Attend dive trade shows.

3. Keep up with changes in computer technology - they affect virtually all industries, including diving.

4. Put new technologies into use. The best way to be familiar with them is through hands-on application.

5. Never accept nor reject something just because it’s new. Be open to change (you can’t stop it anyway), but use your experience to evaluate the merits of emerging technologies. Some will bring significant improvements to diving; others will be short-lived fads with little practicality.

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Your

In document Dive Master Questionaire (Page 161-164)