For my STEP project, I earned the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Open Water Diver (OW), Advanced Open Water Diver (AOW), and Rescue Diver certifications. Through this project, I learned the basics of SCUBA diving, some advanced diving techniques that have allowed me to advance as a SCUBA diver, and skills to ensure my safety and that of other SCUBA divers.
SCUBA diving is a group activity (at least for divers who have not been trained to dive by themselves) and requires cooperation from all participants. As a result, my STEP project changed my perspective on the importance of working together with others to achieve a common goal. Learning how to respond to dangerous scenarios while SCUBA diving also helped me to understand that I will sometimes need to take the role of a leader even when I have not been formally assigned to that role.
People may dive for a variety of reasons. For example, my goal when diving is often to observe aquatic life that I can’t view easily from the surface. Other people may dive to recover objects from the seafloor. Others may dive to collect food. However, I learned from my training that all of these are secondary goals, whereas the primary goal of any dive is for all divers to return safely to the surface. To achieve the primary and secondary goals of a dive, it is necessary for divers to work together.
I learned to work together with other divers to plan a safe dive during my OW certification course. This includes planning the amount of time that will be spent at certain depths, planning the route of the dive, and accounting for factors like currents to ensure that all divers will remain safe. I also learned during my OW certification course that divers need to cooperate during a dive to keep each other safe. This includes keeping track of your dive buddy’s location, communicating about your remaining air supply and unexpected factors like the presence of dangerous wildlife, and adhering to group safety guidelines, like spending only 60 seconds looking for your buddy if you lose them before returning to the boat to increase the chances that attempts to rescue them, if necessary, will be successful.
During my AOW course, I learned how to cooperate with other divers to dive safely under certain scenarios. For example, I learned how to navigate underwater with a buddy, which is necessary to prevent yourself from getting lost during a dive. However, effective underwater navigation requires teamwork. I learned to navigate by having one buddy keep track of their direction of travel using a compass while the other monitors their depth and surroundings. With one buddy controlling the pair’s direction and the other controlling its depth, cooperation allows the buddy pair to safely navigate to complete the dive. Through the AOW course, I learned to cooperate with others in a similar way to effectively and safely dive at night, at greater-than-normal depths, and while searching for and recovering lost objects.
Finally, the Rescue Diver course emphasized the importance of cooperation during emergency scenarios. I participated in a variety of simulated diving-related emergency scenarios during the Rescue Diver course. Cooperation was important in all of these scenarios. For example, a search and rescue attempt would be much more likely to succeed if all divers involved coordinated their search plans to enable the group to cover the greatest area possible during their search. Similarly, a rescue attempt where one person was calling 911 while another was performing CPR would be more likely to succeed than a rescue attempt where only one person was trying to complete all tasks by themself.
While the need for cooperation among divers was evident during the Rescue Diver course, emergency situations are never planned, so the role that an individual should play in a rescue scenario is not always clear. For example, it might not be obvious who should perform CPR and who should call 911 during an emergency. Therefore, it is often necessary for someone, usually the person with the most experience and training, to assume leadership role at a moment’s notice. The Rescue Diver course taught me that I may have to step into a leadership role to ensure a group’s success even though I had not previously been designated to that role.
While my STEP project taught me the importance of cooperation and being able to step into a leadership role while SCUBA diving, I will certainly need to cooperate with others and be a leader in other scenarios during my life. For example, I plan to attend graduate school to study ecology, and I will be a more effective researcher if I cooperate with others to achieve things that I would not be able to accomplish by myself. Similarly, I may need to lead research projects when I am the one who is most familiar with the project’s goal. By emphasizing the importance of cooperation and leadership, my STEP project has prepared me to be a more effective collaborator and leader during graduate school and my future career in research, preparing me to be a more successful researcher.
Diving at Gilboa Quarry during my Advanced Open Water Diver certification course.