After taking the plunge into professional Diving and finishing the divemaster course, you may ask a question about what comes next. Many divemasters prefer to keep training to become an open water scuba instructor, but did you know that there is a career called assistant instructor.

so, if you are interested in that, keep reading to know the differences between divemaster and assistant instructor.

What Comes After Becoming a Divemaster

Your first step to become a PADI Pro is to finish your Divemaster course for sure. During this course, you will learn how to guide divers and assist instructors while practicing scuba diving skills.

You will know briefly what accommodate scuba divers is like, managing a diving business and how the students get their support while they take their first breaths underwater.

After you get that experience under your belt and you want to do more, you can start to interact more with students independently. Of course that will happen after you gain confidence in your abilities.

If you are ready now to take your next step, assistant instructor will be your next rung on the ladder of your PADI Pro career.

How to Become an Assistant Instructor

There isn’t a typical career progression as a professional scuba diver, however many people go directly from divemaster to open water scuba diving instructor. Most scuba divers don’t know that there is an important step in between those two levels of certifications: this step is becoming an assistant instructor.

The assistant instructor level is considered a good available option that might be what you look for.

An assistant instructor is regarded as a PADI Pro who has achieved the first instructor rating and can teach many PADI courses independently, however there are some courses in which they will need the support of an open water scuba instructor.

The requirement to become an assistant instructor is similar to the requirement to become an open water scuba instructor, at first you should finish the instructor development course. the IDC includes:

• The assistant instructor course.
• The open water scuba instructor course.

You have two options, you can finish the entire IDC courses and then take the instructor exam to be certified as a PADI Open Water scuba instructor or you can just stop after the first part of the IDC and be certified as an assistant instructor.

Differences Between Divemaster and Assistant Instructor

There are many differences between divemaster and assistant instructor. The main one is about the role of both careers, the role of divemaster is to guide certified divers and support scuba instructors while training. On the other hand, the role of an assistant instructor is to practice some teaching activities with the support of an open water scuba instructor.

An assistant instructor can do anything that a divemaster can do. That’s because to become an assistant instructor you must have finished a divemaster course, however, assistant instructors have extra responsibility in the classroom and also have more teaching roles.

• An assistant instructor can teach non-diving PADI speciality courses independently. These courses include project aware, the Coral reef conservation, etc
• With the support of an open water scuba instructor, assistant instructors can teach the knowledge development section of PADI courses, initial diving skills during confined water sessions or teach the peak performance buoyancy.
• They can also conduct Discover Scuba Diving experiences and confined water sessions in addition to PADI seal team aquamissions and Bubblemaker Programs for children.

 The previous activities can be considered the first contact with diving and also from the differences between the divemaster and assistant instructor. It’s a precious feeling to introduce someone new to the world beneath the waves.

Reasons to Become an Assistant Instructor

If you don’t feel ready to become an Open Water Scuba Instructor(OWSI), but still have the ability to take more responsibility and be more independent, it’s an excellent choice to become an assistant instructor to gain more experience on teaching and interacting with scuba students.

After becoming an assistant instructor, you will be sure whether becoming a scuba instructor suits you or not. And when you become sure that you are ready to become a scuba instructor, all you have to do is to complete the open water scuba instructor part of the IDC course and take your IE to get a full PADI instructor rating.