PADI courses cater to personal or professional goals, with options for beginners to advanced divers. Courses vary in subject matter and time commitment, with interest-based courses available. PADI also offers courses for those who want to teach diving.
The most important considerations when choosing Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) courses are personal or professional goals. Different PADI courses teach a beginner to dive, help an intermediate diver gain advanced skills, or teach an advanced diver to teach others to dive. Some courses are geared toward exploration, while others are for beginners who already know they want a certification. The next consideration is the available time. Some PADI courses are available online or in abbreviated courses that offer limited skills. After completing the core certification courses, there are several interest-based courses that provide skills and experience in a specific specialization.
For beginners, PADI offers a Discover Scuba Diving course, designed to give inexperienced divers a taste of what it’s like to breathe underwater. While the Discover course is not required, it can be used towards credit toward more basic PADI certification courses, such as the PADI Scuba Diver or PADI Open Water Certification courses. Confident beginners can jump right into the Open Water Certification course, which allows students to become certified divers. This PADI course includes at least five pool dives and four dives at the dive sites. The PADI Scuba Diver course is a short version of the Open Water Certification course and offers a limited certification that allows students to make dives under qualified supervision.
The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course requires completion of the PADI Open Water course and builds on current skills while developing new skills and increasing students’ confidence in the water. Students can also earn this certification by completing another PADI course, the Adventure Diver course. These PADI courses vary in subject matter, focusing on different specialties according to student interest. Completion of this PADI course plus five adventure dives that meet certain qualifications will qualify the student for the PADI Advanced Open Water certification.
On the third level of PADI certification training is the PADI Rescue Diver course, which teaches students how to avoid diving problems and, if they do occur, how to deal with them. This PADI course is one of the prerequisites for the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating, which is the highest non-professional level available. In addition to these PADI certification courses, there are a variety of interest-related courses available for students who want to expand their knowledge in certain types of diving, such as wreck diving, photography or videography.
Finally, there are PADI courses that prepare divers to teach others to dive. A PADI Divemaster course is your gateway to professional-level diving. The following are PADI Assistant Instructor and Instructor level courses. Beyond this level, there are a variety of specialized PADI Instructor courses to enhance teaching skills in a variety of areas.
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