Students Join RPLS.com for $25 a Year; Instructors Join Free

Everybody in surveying has heard some version of the same worry: there aren’t enough people coming up behind us. Crews are greying, the programs are small, and a lot of good young surveyors find this profession by accident rather than on purpose.

We can’t fix that from a forum. What we can do is make sure the ones who find their way here can afford to take part.

Starting today, students and apprentices in a surveying, geomatics, civil engineering, or related program can join RPLS.com for $25 a year instead of $100. Here’s what comes with it: start topics, reply anywhere, the members-only rooms, private messaging, and the Classifieds, Jobs, and Want to Buy boards. A Student badge sits on the profile so the room knows who’s asking.

The one thing it doesn’t include is a Find a Surveyor listing. That directory is where people go to hire a surveyor, so it stays with the ones who are practicing and taking work — and it’s waiting for them when they get there.

Apprentices count. Night school counts. Part-time counts. You don’t need a license, and you don’t need to be at a school anybody’s heard of.

Instructors and program faculty join free. If you teach in a surveying program, your membership is on us — same application, choose “Instructor / faculty,” and there’s no payment step.

Why so little? Because the valuable thing here was never the archive. That’s been free to read for everyone since August. The valuable thing is the people in it, and what they’ll do when somebody asks a question properly: tell you where the corner really is, why that plat won’t close, what the client actually wants when they say they want a survey. That’s worth more to someone in their second year than to anyone else on this site.

Now the favor. Students aren’t reading this post — you are. If you’ve got a kid in a program, a crew member taking classes at night, or a local college you’ve spoken at once or twice, send them the link. That’s how this actually works.

An important note about how this works: I read every application. There’s no automated check, no school-email-and-you’re-in. We ask for something showing you’re enrolled right now, we look at it, and it usually takes a day or two. And when somebody finishes their program, they don’t get dumped off a cliff — we move graduates onto a discounted first year of regular membership rather than jumping them to full price.

Check it out: https://rpls.com/membership/students

Happy traversing,

Wendell
RPLS.com Administrator
https://rpls.com/member/wendell

P.S. Our Surveying Resources directory lists the colleges and apprenticeship programs that train surveyors, free and public, no account needed. It’s also where we’re building the list of schools to contact about this — so if you came up through a program that isn’t in there, please let us know about it.