A diving internship

Hailing from a trade background, I believe in the apprenticeship system so I absolutely support internships in diving. Unlike an apprenticeship where the apprentice is paid to undertake on-the-job training; albeit paid proportionally to their output, an internship requires the commitment of paying the course fee yourself to gain on-the-job experience or alternately working for free. 

However, the longer the dive supervisor, dive controller or divemaster gains exposure to actual diving operations and the more diverse diving surroundings, the more an individual learns in a working diving environment. 

Working as a divemaster on a large charter boat, we had a number of instructors working with their class. It doesn't take long to work out who has actual on-the-job working experience and who has just moved from one course to the next. 

The bulk of their diving experience is taken under the guise of dive courses with the occasional fun dive thrown in every now and again.  

This experience really shows when planing, leading and executing dive courses; even though students change on a regular basis, experienced instructors make the class run smoothly whilst instructors with little on-the-job experience struggle to lead structured outcomes.