@edward-reading?ÿ
I'm sure this is true for you. Congratulations! it is exceptional. It is hard to plan things based on exceptional things happening.
It is a fact that when (mostly in the 1990s and 2000s states began requiring a degree to apply, many saw their opportunity to progress to a license go away as impractical. Many of the best trained, experienced people gave up, with some exceptions of course.
I support the requirement (now 2 decades in force) primarily because today we hope one who graduates college can read and write at a high school level. An opportunity we missed was IF we wanted to enforce a degree requirement, it would have been better and more productive to require an MS. Most states require 30 hours of surveying classes, which is about the same amount required for an MS. An MS program is far less expensive for the schools than a BS.
It also serves to provide an invitation to people with a BS in other fields, e.g., Forestry, Math, Geology, Construction, and Engineering; increasing the gene pool, so to speak.
Best wished,
JAC
Getting back to the O.P., the decision covers a narrow question and I don??t read it as a general statement of who is a professional.
It is limited to statutory interpretation to determine who benefits from the shorter statute of limitations.
It??s the court sticking it to the legislature. The legislature refuses to define what is a profession, we need a bright line rule, license alone is unsatisfactory because then barbers would be professionals, but degree alone is unsatisfactory because then insurance salesmen would be professionals therefore you need both until the legislature fixes it.
Judges are supposed to be big thinkers and solve difficult questions so the irony of such an unprofessional line of decisions is glaring, like they are legal plumbers picking the right sized valve to use.
Besides ??Judge? is not a profession based on their own decision.
@edward-reading?ÿ
I'm sure this is true for you. Congratulations! it is exceptional. It is hard to plan things based on exceptional things happening.It is a fact that when (mostly in the 1990s and 2000s states began requiring a degree to apply, many saw their opportunity to progress to a license go away as impractical. Many of the best trained, experienced people gave up, with some exceptions of course.
I support the requirement (now 2 decades in force) primarily because today we hope one who graduates college can read and write at a high school level. An opportunity we missed was IF we wanted to enforce a degree requirement, it would have been better and more productive to require an MS. Most states require 30 hours of surveying classes, which is about the same amount required for an MS. An MS program is far less expensive for the schools than a BS.
It also serves to provide an invitation to people with a BS in other fields, e.g., Forestry, Math, Geology, Construction, and Engineering; increasing the gene pool, so to speak.
Best wished,
JAC
Wow, so sad that acquiring a BS is considered "exceptional" and "impractical".?ÿ
It seems you misread my intention when I wrote that after 10 years of experience your returning to school for a BS was exceptional
A BS in and of itself for most graduates is little more than getting a ticket punched; one without which their perceived chances of getting the job to which they aspire are slim.
Party chiefs and aspiring surveyors who had or nearly had experience frequently also had expenses like families, mortgages, and time away from school. Their options for paying tuition, reduced wages while studying, the length of time for a BS while going part-time, and such was deemed impractical. This also cut off from licensure many experienced people.
I think my words were accurate. I apologize if I didn't write them clearly enough to express my intentions.
JAC
I often wonder how the ancients knew where their property lines were located in big cities. Or how Marcus the Roman citizen knew which piece of dirt was his in the City of Rome so he could build his house, apartment building or business. Maybe the City fathers owned everything and it was a case of who you know or simple squatting.
In the US in furtherance of the public peace we have designated a regulated profession called Land Surveying to mark out the limits of the dirt any given person can develop. At some point many states decided to require a 4 year surveying degree to be admitted to the profession. It??s the American way, slap a huge burden on a service admittedly necessary to maintaining peace in the City and Countryside without providing for public funding or at least some assistance so we can maintain the necessary supply of trained professionals to mark out corners that need to be marked out. It??s largely a public problem which the public should participate in solving.
It seems you misread my intention when I wrote that after 10 years of experience your returning to school for a BS was exceptional
A BS in and of itself for most graduates is little more than getting a ticket punched; one without which their perceived chances of getting the job to which they aspire are slim.
Party chiefs and aspiring surveyors who had or nearly had experience frequently also had expenses like families, mortgages, and time away from school. Their options for paying tuition, reduced wages while studying, the length of time for a BS while going part-time, and such was deemed impractical. This also cut off from licensure many experienced people.
I think my words were accurate. I apologize if I didn't write them clearly enough to express my intentions.
JAC
I went back after about 10 years for my BS as well. When I went back to school about half of my cohort was over 30, with several over 40. Many of them had families, a few were single parents, all of them worked with their employers and their professors to make it happen. Some folks took an extra year or two to graduate in order to keep things solid on the home front.
It's only unusual in areas where the state university system, professional organizations, and local firms don't fully support it. I could tell my professors that I was going out on a remote job for a week or two, and they would say "no problem, get your coursework in as soon as you can." (I always submitted on time unless the remote job had no internet connection.) I could tell my supervisor that I had midterms the next week so I was going to pull some long hours this week to make sure we made deadlines on deliverables.
My wife is a teacher, and going back for her master's right now. It's tough, I don't make a ton of money, she has chronic medical issues and we live in a high-cost area. But the school districts recognize the value of standardized education, advanced schooling and do pay higher wages for it. It's not insurmountable.
I'm neither new nor veteran at this profession, having done this for seventeen years now, and I'm not buying the whole "all the best people lost their chance at licensure because of education requirements" line. It does a disservice both to those "best" folks (whose value to the profession is not contingent upon licensure, and I see many of them being compensated at least as well as newer, younger licensees) as well as the incoming younger aspiring licensees, who understandably are a bit taken aback that after they put in all that effort to get the coursework/degree and mentor under a licensee, they are told that they are lucky to be there and the previous generation was somehow both better than them and victims of the "unfair" system that these young folks just successfully navigated.
Right now we're going through a shake-up and (attempt at) standardization similar to what the US medical profession did in the last half of the 19th century. I'm sure there were a lot of folks who were "shut out" of the licensure path back then too. It doesn't make education invalid, and it's not necessarily inherently unfair, even though it may seem that way to a few whom I would label more unlucky than anything else. My license, while nice to have, is a very small part of why my employer pays me what they do.
I admire anyone who can serve two masters fulltime.?ÿ A university course of study should keep you busy seven days per week.?ÿ I survived the last 15 months of my university time raising a baby.?ÿ Married the entire time.?ÿ Graduated at 21.?ÿ Grew old in those years.
It is a fact that when (mostly in the 1990s and 2000s states began requiring a degree to apply, many saw their opportunity to progress to a license go away as impractical. Many of the best trained, experienced people gave up, with some exceptions of course.
...
Party chiefs and aspiring surveyors who had or nearly had experience frequently also had expenses like families, mortgages, and time away from school. Their options for paying tuition, reduced wages while studying, the length of time for a BS while going part-time, and such was deemed impractical. This also cut off from licensure many experienced people.
I will not argue that your claimed fact is not so.?ÿ I do not have any data that would either support or refute your claim of what many saw.
However, what they saw is something that should be clarified.?ÿ In any of the implementations of a degree requirement that I have read, there was a rather lengthy time period in which most of those who were working towards licensure through experience routes had the opportunity to complete that path.?ÿ In Kentucky, I think there was at least 6 years available in which to complete one's experience - long enough that many who were already working actively in the profession should have had time to become licensed.?ÿ I think it was 10 years of experience needed, so only those with less than 4 years of being employed in surveying were "cut-off".
Since the Kentucky language drew from other states statutes in its development, I would expect many other states had this time period to complete an experience route to a license as well.?ÿ Some states may have just abruptly ended the possibility of an experience route, but I do not know every states enactment.?ÿ That would seem odd though as most state statutes around these topics spread from one state to another with very similar language.
?ÿ
As I recall, Kansas had several years of notice of the pending change.?ÿ However, that was directed to those who were already "on the list".?ÿ So, those who didn't see said notice may not have learned about the pending change until too late.?ÿ We tend to talk to ourselves a lot.?ÿ Something similar happened when Kansas removed survey licensure from P.E.'s.?ÿ Only those who read the official State publication knew what was happening and what was needed to obtain the L.S..
c'est la vie.
It is understood that some people manage to work, pay the mortgage, have a family AND go to college.
But I think it is undeniable that putting an obstacle in any path will reduce the numbers of new licensees. It is a numbers game. Maybe a college degree is required to serve the need of society for educated professionals but if the numbers of new licenses are going to keep up with need something will need to be done to assist people. Obviously it will be an investment of time after all I didn??t just pass the exam with no study; I invested a lot of time in preparation including taking college level courses.
It is understood that some people manage to work, pay the mortgage, have a family AND go to college.
But I think it is undeniable that putting an obstacle in any path will reduce the numbers of new licensees. It is a numbers game. Maybe a college degree is required to serve the need of society for educated professionals but if the numbers of new licenses are going to keep up with need something will need to be done to assist people. Obviously it will be an investment of time after all I didn??t just pass the exam with no study; I invested a lot of time in preparation including taking college level courses.
I couldn't agree more. Assist those who have the talent and the ability. Not everyone is cut out to be a professional land surveyor, just the same as not everyone is cut out to be a professional baseball player. I wanted to be the latter 25 years ago; I didn't make the cut by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not going to demand that MLB lower its standards for me. There's plenty of talent out there, despite what some would suggest. We just need to make it worth their while to apply those talents to our field.
@rover83?ÿ
Absolutely.?ÿ ?ÿI'm glad you framed it like that, because that's how I feel?ÿ and believe it helps this career path succeed for all of us; licenses, license chasers, CSTs, field only people that only want To be there, and the office seekers are all on the same team.
@edward-reading?ÿ
I'm sure this is true for you. Congratulations! it is exceptional. It is hard to plan things based on exceptional things happening.It is a fact that when (mostly in the 1990s and 2000s states began requiring a degree to apply, many saw their opportunity to progress to a license go away as impractical. Many of the best trained, experienced people gave up, with some exceptions of course.
I support the requirement (now 2 decades in force) primarily because today we hope one who graduates college can read and write at a high school level. An opportunity we missed was IF we wanted to enforce a degree requirement, it would have been better and more productive to require an MS. Most states require 30 hours of surveying classes, which is about the same amount required for an MS. An MS program is far less expensive for the schools than a BS.
It also serves to provide an invitation to people with a BS in other fields, e.g., Forestry, Math, Geology, Construction, and Engineering; increasing the gene pool, so to speak.
Best wished,
JAC
Yes! There just isn't enough first time college freshman interested in land surveying, or enough people willing to get a second Bachelors degree.?ÿ
Also, land surveying isn't attracting the brightest and/or highest academic achievers. Unfortunately there isn't enough time in a Bachelors program to teach all the background knowledge, and the survey specific knowledge needed to make good "proffesional" surveyors out of what our high-schools and time on a field crew are molding.?ÿ
Give me a physics, math, history, or even Germanic literature major over a surveyor trained by a school of engineering any day.?ÿ
I often wonder how the ancients knew where their property lines were located in big cities. Or how Marcus the Roman citizen knew which piece of dirt was his in the City of Rome so he could build his house, apartment building or business. Maybe the City fathers owned everything and it was a case of who you know or simple squatting.
In the US in furtherance of the public peace we have designated a regulated profession called Land Surveying to mark out the limits of the dirt any given person can develop. At some point many states decided to require a 4 year surveying degree to be admitted to the profession. It??s the American way, slap a huge burden on a service admittedly necessary to maintaining peace in the City and Countryside without providing for public funding or at least some assistance so we can maintain the necessary supply of trained professionals to mark out corners that need to be marked out. It??s largely a public problem which the public should participate in solving.
It's not just the "American Way". Almost every devopled country requires the equivalent of a U.S. Bachelors degree to be a boundary surveyor.
there isn't enough time in a Bachelors program to teach all the background knowledge, and the survey specific knowledge needed to make good "proffesional" surveyors out of what our high-schools and time on a field crew are molding.?ÿ
Give me a physics, math, history, or even Germanic literature major over a surveyor trained by a school of engineering any day.?ÿ
You understand!
@aliquot?ÿ
"It's not just the "American Way". Almost every devopled country requires the equivalent of a U.S. Bachelors degree to be a boundary surveyor."
I wonder when the American way became copying what others do instead of being better.
hmm joining the crowd or lead,,, that is the question.
I believe the state requiring a surveying degree made me more money.?ÿ
@aliquot yeah well other developed nations are actually civilized, they educate their population. Here rich people are glad to loan you the money.