Divers Institute of Technology

Divers Institute of Technology, known as DIT, is a commercial diving school in Seattle, Washington that has been training commercial divers since 1968. Its core programme takes about seven months and puts students through 900 hours of real-world open-water training, leading to 13 certifications included in the course. The school prepares qualified candidates for inland, offshore and specialised diving work and provides direct career support into those paths. Training is deliberately conducted in open water rather than in pools. The campus sits on the shore of Lake Union in the heart of Seattle, and students learn in the classroom, in the lake from floating dive barges, and aboard the school's own boat, the M/V Response. Divers work to depths of 165 feet and train on eleven different diving hat configurations. The curriculum is delivered as a sequence of courses covering diving physics and medicine, lightweight rigging, offshore hazmat, welding and underwater welding, salvage and hydraulics, SCUBA and inland diving, and deep dives, with underwater welding singled out as the skill set needed for work in the underwater construction industry. Beyond the core programme the school offers advanced and continuing training for working divers, including a Diver Medic Technician Course, a Kirby Morgan Hat Technician Course, Supervisor Training, International Diver Assessments, and upgrades and refreshers for graduates. DIT describes itself as the first US dive school to offer an international certification. The school is veteran owned and veteran operated, and much of its student support is built around that. Active duty military and veterans attending can apply Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits toward tuition, and the school lists military education benefits, student loans, grants and scholarships and a financial aid checklist among its resources. A Seattle Vet Center outreach specialist attends the campus each week, and there is a Student Veterans Organization on site. Other student services include housing assistance for those relocating to Seattle, a registrar and transcript service, a learning resource center, admissions guidance covering requirements and disqualifying medical conditions, and support for international students, who join students from across the country. The programme is framed around team performance as much as individual skill, with students developing leadership and support-role capability, performance management and involved decision-making. Career planning, an industry talk series and information on which employers hire graduates round out the offering, and the school publishes consumer information including a student consumer information guide, cost details and a net price calculator. It also runs a foundation programme and publishes accreditation information, a virtual campus tour, class videos and graduate testimonials for prospective applicants weighing the career.