Aow That Was It!

[mcc2318]

I just wrapped up my padi advanced and kind of felt alittle ripped off! Am I the only one who felt I could have took the actual specialty courses that I had wanted and could have learned more, Am I the only one that feels this way?

[BouzoukiJoe]

You would definitely learn more taking the different specialties. With AOW you get one dive in each specialty. To get a specialty you'd need to make 2 to 4 dives depending on the specialty.

My take on AOW is that it's teaching you the bare minimum that you need to know and exposing you to some different aspects of diving. It's definitely not advanced training. It's more like the second semester of an introductory course.

Edit: bare minimum as in should be part of OW course.

[RoadRacer1978]

Well, I can see why you would feel that way. AOW is more of an extension of OW and it really just introduces you to some other activities you can do in your diving. You could have taken each of the specialties and you would have learned a lot more, but you would have paid a lot more for that training as well. For the money I don't feel that it was a bad experience, nor do I feel like I got ripped off, but I knew what I was getting when I signed up for the course. I think with all courses you take you will always feel that you could have learned more, but there is just not enough time to squeeze everything in.

[Divingguy]

This entire topic has been discussed repeatedly, here and on ScubaBoard. Bear in mind that even the name of the course book was actually something like "Adventures" in Scuba, as I recall. AOW is nothing more than an exposure to other specialties. However, to the extent that it provides you with a "card" which allows you to do dives which many operators would not otherwise permit you to do, gives it some value. Keep it in perspective.

[MSilvia]

Yeah, my AOW was a joke too. On the bright side, it was a prerequisite for a lot of other courses that were actually valuable, and it allowed me to go on a lot of charter trips I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

Still, I wish the course actually had some valuable content. It's not like there's a lack of things to teach a recent OW graduate.

[navyhmc]

I've looked at the "New" AOW book and then pulled out my old book (circa 1984) and found that there's a lot more info in the old book. My buddy even looked at it and likes the old one better-save for the corny 1984 styles and equipment.

As far as being able to do more, yes you can. But don't overextend yourself. up your safe envelope only as fast as your guardian angel can swim.

[No Misses]

I am with roadracer. I did not expect too much from AOW. It was a nice introduction to some of the specialties.

Most dive operations do not want you to dive beyond your training. This may result in your being stuck on the boat, while the rest of the divers hit that 80 fsw reef. Or, they may insist that you pay for a dive master/instructor to escort you on any dives that are outside of your documented training. I did not want that to be me.

I was one of those 30 day wonders that took the AOW course just 2 weeks after completing OW. I picked up a couple of specialties right after that. I might have continued on the "merit badge hunt". But, my instructor moved out of the area and I did not build a rapport with any of the other instructors at my LDS. They seem to have had a revolving door for instructors at that time.

Remember that any knowledge can be a good thing. I am sure that you learned something during your AOW. Maybe it just reinforced what you already believed. How many times has somebody asked you a question, only to respond with “I knew that”? The truth is, they may have suspected that was how it worked, but they did not have a complete grasp of the information.

Before I completed my AOW I had an idea how to conduct an underwater search. During AOW I got a chance to prove to myself that I could do it.

Before AOW I had heard about night dives. During AOW I got a chance to experience it. I did find out that I tend to swim in circles on night dives J

[CaribbeanDiver]

Depends on the instructor. My specialty dives for AOW were Deep, Buoyancy, Night, Navagation and Nitrox. All my dives were on Nitrox, I did two deep dives - one to 127 fsw and one to 122 fsw. I did 4 navagation dives, including one at night and the buoyancy dive was a joke - go down, have the instructor take out weights, add weights, then signal OK and that was it.
I think you will find you learned more than you think from your AOW course. It just may take a little time to realize it. But no, it is not a coures that has you specialized in anything, it is just a smorgasboard of specialites that offers only a taste.

[dallasdivergirl]

I think the AOW class is what you make of it.

You and your buddy can plan your dives and work on navigation skills, seach and recovery and any of the other specialties that are offered. I think that in my class they were very good about saying that AOW was just a selection of dives to let you get an idea of what you could possibly see or do if you did go ahead and take the specialty courses.

I think that having to work on dive planning with a brand new buddy was a great learning experience for me. Also it was my first time to not have a dive master or instructor leading the dive.

[cummings66]

I think the class depends on the level of the student. I found it boring and very easy to do, could have done it with my eyes shut save for the navigation part. Absolutely nothing was learned there that I already did not know and that includes figuring my SAC rate and knowing how many cf of gas I need for a specific dive profile.

One of my buddies took the same class and had trouble passing it, in the end he learned a lot from it.

Same instructors, same shop, same class. What was the difference? He didn't have the same level of knowledge I did because I thirst for it and read every book which contains what I want to know about. He doesn't.

So for some people it is a boring class, for others it's a learning class. Did I feel ripped off, yeah, sort of. I did get the card I wanted but I did not learn anything new. Well, I learned they use SCR for surface consumption rate, most people here relate that to SAC or surface air consumption.