UTD Journal Volume 5 Issue 3, November 2017 | Page 4

why utd? CHALLENGING BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. DISCERNING BUT NOT EXCLUSIVE. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Y ears ago, when we started UTD, we were known as the agency where it was almost impossible to succeed. IDC’s were complex affairs, with most instructor candidates returning two or three times before finally being signed off to teach. Now, almost a decade later, we still get calls from people who are interested in becoming UTD instructors and UTD students, but are concerned that the bar is too high, that they won’t have the skills to finish, and that they can go to any other agency to receive some training and a c-card and start diving or teaching to their new level. uniFieD team DiVing: Challenging, but not impossible We went through a period where we started believing these phone calls. We looked at relaxing standards, trying new programs to reduce the barriers to entry...basically trying to become more main stream. But that did not support our ethos of teaching the way we dive and giving people the skills to be the safest, best trained divers on the planet. Our path is set. We are not main stream and never will be. We are the place to come if you want a to challenge yourself as a diver or as an instructor. DisCerning, but not exClusiVe Recreational and Technical Dive Training www.utdscubadiving.com INSTRUCTORS WANTED As an instructor candidate, we will teach you to teach – you will learn to create common ground with your students, use building block techniques to guide your stu- dents to success, and take them though an organized program of learning – rote, then understanding, then application, then finally correlation. Our IDC’s are not diving classes, they are teaching classes. We expect you to come to the IDC with the requisite skills needed to pass the class. In the IDC we show you how we teach each skill, how to guide your students to safety and success. As a student you will be challenged. But success is obtainable. No one in a UTD class is ever set up for failure – all students are set up for success. One of the keys is to understand that we can’t teach you