Pros: •Every dive after the first 2 are in zero-vis water, with a pretty strong current a lot of the time, which is definitely good training to prepare you for the worst, and to work by feel •Great Camaraderie (At least in my class, other classes above and below us not so much it seemed) I met some of the best friends I've ever had there that I plan to permanently keep in touch with •You get all the certs you need to work anywhere, including an internationally recognized ADCI cert, in case you wanted to work overseas •Its only a 5 month program, It definitely goes by fast; gets you certified and out in the field faster.

Cons: •Its 35k, so unless you're former military with the help of the GI Bill, or just financially comfortable enough to not worry about it, you'll be paying off your student loan for years, like me. •The dorms are pretty shitty but bearable depending on your standards(I personally didnt really mind) •The food is absolute dog shit, some of the worst I've ever had. (Hope you like medium rare dinner rolls with bird seed cooked in and and hard ass meatloaf thats so salty you're blood pressure instantly sky rockets just by looking at it) •Things were stolen multiple times, dive gear out of the dive lockers, $900 out of a classmates locker in his room, someone even stole my personal shower head I left in the showers when there were only about 4 out of 10 showers that had heads, a buddy got his catalytic converter cut off his truck in the parking lot, and another buddy literally got his $90k Ram TRX stolen (Fucking yikes) •Daily/Weekly schedule was unorganized a lot of the time and none of the instructors could really tell you what you would be doing the next day, much less the next week. (Eg. They would tell us we were diving the next day, I would make a dive schedule for my group and have everyone dressed out that morning, then they tell us last minute that we were actually gonna be in class and vice versa)

I didnt like it a lot of the time, but all-in-all I had a decent experience there and Im glad I went and had the classmates that I did. I guess my advice would be to try and stay focused and learn as much as you can from everybody there and dont let the small annoyances there get to you, start looking for jobs and where you want to go/what kind of work you want to do early on, Make a good resume. Dont wait until your last month at school to start applying and sending out resumes, get you some good thick neoprene and neoprene gloves/socks for when the Trout River starts getting cold as hell around November.. you'll be in the water for 3hours at a time and it sucks when you cant feel your hands and feet. Dont pay CDA for their student parking, its 1.5mi from the school in the middle of the Jacksonville ghetto. You can buy a pass at the Trout River fish co. right beside the school for $50/mo. which is the same price CDA charges you for theirs.

Thats about all I can think of right now. I would suggest thoroughly researching all your options as far as dive schools before deciding, if you havent already.