Exams and more exams

Exams and more exams

Today is the second day of my IDC, and after a quick coffee, we all started our early morning with some exams! What more do you want when you just got up?

We have two different sets of exams to do; the General Standards, and the Theory Exams. The General Standards Exam is all about the PADI Instructor Manual and PADI Instructor Guide.

It is an open book exam and we had 1,5 hours to complete it. When English isn't your first language, you also get 50% more time to do any exams. Fortunately, I had already done a similar exam on my PADI Assistant Instructorcourse, so I knew more or less what to expect. 
In the last couple of weeks, I have been studying my PADI Instructor Manual almost daily.

After that, it was time for the Theory Exams. There are 5 chapters:

Physics                                (the one I struggle with most!)

Physiology          (I struggle with the long, unfamiliar words in this chapter)

Equipment         (I’m okay with this one, I learned a lot about equipment at work in the last months)

RDP (Recreational Dive Planner)              (I struggle with the tables, although I’m fine with the eRDPml)

Skills and Environment                 (No real issues with this one)

Again, we had 1,5 hours to do the second part of the exams, and I even had time left on these, because most of the questions were easier than I had expected!

After the exams, we had a lunch break, and very patiently (not!) waited for our exam results. I turned out to score 100% on everything! I knew I had done my best on my studying, but I did not expect the result to be that good, so I was thrilled!

In the afternoon, we listened to David’s presentations about Teaching in Confined Water and Developing Knowledge Development.  

Now we know what to expect about those, and tomorrow we will be doing our first Confined Water presentations in the pool and also our Knowledge Development presentations in the classroom. 

Lots of homework for tonight! 

After feeling quite relaxed today, from the moment I started my exams, I’m a bit more nervous about my upcoming presentations!

You can read about the presentations next week!

Love, Alice

The Big Day has come!!

The Big Day has come!!

Today is the big day, I’m going to start my IDC course! I didn’t really believe it yet when I woke up, but it really is time now.

Pete had offered to drop me off on the first day, so I didn’t have to stress about how to get there. On our way, it really became clear to me; “This is it!” My hands were shaking, that’s how nervous I was!

We arrived on the scene, I mean, Dive center, and walked through the door. I was lucky to had already met some of the people there; David, our PADI Course Director and Tim, our PADI Master Instructor.

I also met all my fellow IDC-candidates, and soon discovered we would be divided in two groups; Spanish and International. I was of course in the International group, who could all speak English. We had people from England, Ireland, Latvia, Hungarian and another Dutchy! Then there were also our two assisting (to be) PADI Staff Instructors: Phil, from Teide Divers, who I already knew, and Alexandro.

Pete stayed around for a little while, which was very reassuring, and David, our PADI Course Director, started the first presentation: Orientation. We received a schedule for the 7 days of the IDC, introduced ourselves and it soon became a lot clearer that it wasn’t all as scary as thought!

The IDC is developed to (as the name Instructor Development Course suggests) develop new Instructors, and to teach you everything you need to know. No one expects you to already know everything, because you’re only a Divemaster or Assistant Instructor! We are here to learn.

I feel very reassured, and already less stressed than in de last couple of weeks. Pete went back the Dive Center and the rest of the day we listened to more presentations about General Standards and the Business of Diving.

Tomorrow we will start the day with practice exams, to see where we are all up to, and what we need to work on over the next week.

I got a ride home from Lorcan, one of my fellow candidates on the IDC who owns a Dive Center in Gran Canaria, and after a quick drink with some of the DM interns and Pete and Melissa, I went home to do some of my last studying!

Wish me luck!

Love, Alice