Diving for Degrees

This year will see the first stage of an exciting new program that will eventually spread to many US universities. PADI's new PADI X campaign is aimed at providing scuba diving internships to college students across the country. The new program allows students to complete internships with local dive businesses learning not only to dive, but also the business of diving. Students gain valuable real world experience and become PADI X representatives, marketing diving to their classmates as part of their training. This means that it's a real win-win situation for the students who can gain credit for something that feels more like fun than you're average course and for the diving industry who benefit by creating new interest in diving in the key 18-24 demographic.

The program will be offered widely in the future, but will begin this year at the following universities:

• Indiana University
• University of Central Florida
• Arizona State University
• University of Oregon
• University of San Diego

Where were these programs when I was at university? Going out for a dive and learning some new skills would have been a great break in between Political Science and Economics classes.