I was talking with a fellow license about this the other day.?ÿ We expect at least 3 local surveyors to retire in less than 10 years and neither of us (40 & 45) are worried about it.?ÿ In fact, it's a source of optimism due to potential increased demand for our services as well as buy-out opportunities.
I've been hearing this hit the fan thing since I was in school.?ÿ What exactly is it that's going to be a problem??ÿ A bunch of younger guys are going to make a ton of money? ????ÿ
The best part is when practitioners refuse to help, then pick apart everything you do while failing to provide a single practical solution.
Gotta love the surveyor circular firing squad. In my experience the most vocal obstructers are the ones offering no solutions.
In fact, it's a source of optimism due to potential increased demand for our services as well as buy-out opportunities.
I've been hearing this hit the fan thing since I was in school.?ÿ What exactly is it that's going to be a problem??ÿ A bunch of younger guys are going to make a ton of money?
Agreed, I've been waiting for this "increased demand will equal fantastic pay!" to kick in for at least a decade.
I think that the recession squirreled things up, I know a lot of firms and public sector departments with folks set to retire by 2010 who stayed on another ten years. For the younger folks to move up, we need both mentorship from the top....and for the top to actually retire. It's a double whammy if you work at an organization that won't consider anyone for advancement once they reach a certain age.
I don't doubt it's challenging, but I also wasn't criticizing only survey rules.?ÿ Licensing criteria doesn't ensure competence the same way every criminal law in the country fails to prevent crime.
Anyway, as far as suggestions I think the idea of a degree requirement is excellent, but the cost of tuition is a concern that needs to be addressed.?ÿ As far as the post-graduate stuff like mentoring and continuing education I would maybe look to requiring licenses to contribute a certain amount of hours a year towards helping teach a class in a state program, on the job mentoring, or presenting at conferences or section meetings.?ÿ I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "Hey, if you want to work in this state then you're going to help the profession get better, and if you don't like that then you're certainly free to work elsewhere".
As far as the pay, well... at the conference this year when the IDOPL guy said they were hiring a surveyor for 5 bucks less than an engineer I immediately thought get the hell out of here with that noise.?ÿ People can take advantage of you only as long as you let them.
Just read this article yesterday in my State Associations publication.
https://umaine.edu/svt/wp-content/uploads/sites/105/2022/02/TOP03.pdf
@bstrand i would say the transition from 47 independent agencies to one did not go as planned, but it's apparent there was no plan. DOPL attempted to reclassify every single position. IPELS went from three executives to zero. Had I stayed I would have lost 60% of my vacation, all exec perks and several dollars an hour. I also would have been probationary (again). I'm too old to sit quietly in a corner, and have pretty much sucked at that my whole life anyway.
I take some of these threads more personal than I should. It would be nice to say I'll reflect on that and change. I'm sure I won't.
@csk21?ÿ
Radical proposal, but well defended.
I would say that the article's examples prove that the proposal is a lot less radical than most would think.
This quote in particular rang true with me:?ÿ
Let us not fool ourselves in thinking two or four years of experience is a constant learning process for an individual. It is not. In many cases, experience is merely the repetition of a limited number of survey tasks repeated over many years. An individual that has spent four years surveying urban lots has probably gained the extent of new knowledge after only three months of employment and after surveying one or two of their first urban lots.
?ÿAnd this is the crux of the problem with the "eXpErIEnCe OnlY, EducAtiOn SuX" attitude - there is absolutely no independent or outside evaluation of experience beyond a single individual saying "sure, this guy knows surveying". That statement is not independently verified or validated by an independent, unbiased third party.
State-specific exams really just evaluate knowledge, and it could be argued that their open-book nature means they are just a test of who has tabbed their materials best. (I don't really agree with that but can see the point. Short-answer and essay, or oral, examinations are still a better way to evaluate knowledge.)
Whatever one's gripes are with higher education, at the very least there are minimum standards for each level of instructor from adjunct to full professor, standardized content for coursework regularly reviewed and updated by departmental boards, and evaluation of instructors from the student cohort and internal departmental reviews. (Professors can and are removed for failing to meet the needs of students. I saw it happen several times during my college days. Forget about tenure - only about 20-25% of faculty members are actually tenured.) Throw in accreditation agencies, and there's an additional layer of vetting.
I was in the middle of my geomatics degree when we got audited by ABET. It wasn't just a rubber-stamp process, they visited and sat in on classes, interviewed students and professors, and worked with the department to modify degree tracks. Not all universities are the same, but accreditation reviews make sure that the mix of courses at each one meets standards.
It ain't perfect - nothing is - but there is far more rigor there than "this guy says this other guy knows what they he's doing".
Experience is still crucial, and I don't think that Mr. Hermansen is arguing otherwise.
Anyway, as far as suggestions I think the idea of a degree requirement is excellent, but the cost of tuition is a concern that needs to be addressed.
Absolutely. That's not a surveyor problem, but a USA problem. One that is easily solved if we decide to be honest with ourselves about who should and shouldn't be getting a degree, and whether more money should be allocated to athletics, to a giant rock wall at the gym, or to the education that is supposedly the main reason folks are attending.
Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise discusses that very problem in depth. It's a pretty good read.
@bstrand?ÿ
Young ones? Who might they be? Don't know them, youngest I know are older than my son and he's about to turn 40. And those guys are swamped like me.?ÿ?ÿ
They just don't exist. Two local engineering firms have been headhunting for years trying to find someone. It's an interesting problem, but I'm not worried or anything, simply sharpening up my skills to turn down work. My goal is to only do what I like and nothing I don't like.?ÿ
Unless you're hiring for something only a handful of people in the world know how to do I think the "we haven't been able to find help for XYZ years" thing is the biggest hoax in the history of business.?ÿ I know I've said something like this before on the site but if you can't find help then you're either not paying enough, or you have a culture/personality problem, or you're in an undesirable part of the country-- and not a one of those things can't be fixed by coughing up more money.
I think the Lakers recently hired a new head coach, and they interviewed 3 guys over the course of a month or so in the process.?ÿ What is it, 30 guys have that job at any given time??ÿ Business owners are telling me out of a pool of 30-50 guys in the country that know how to coach an NBA team an organization can find a guy in a month, but an engineering company can't find an LS in 2 years??ÿ Comon' now...
The schools now have no skin in the game, they often put out graduates with unmarketable degrees and leave them with crushing debt.?ÿ
I don't disagree, but I would phrase it as - Students often choose an unmarketable degree and get into crushing debt by not understanding the return on their investment.?ÿ And that choice is usually made before the student even starts to go to college.
I assisted at summer registration for the regional university's college of science, engineering, and technology when I was teaching there.?ÿ As the different cohorts were called out of the introductory meeting, a huge chunk of the students left the room when biology was called.?ÿ The standing joke murmured between the engineering/tech faculty was along the lines of "good luck getting a job".?ÿ There are only so many biology teacher positions, but so many students thought that was what they would be doing.?ÿ At least they were fortunate to be able to adapt somewhat to other positions, but many of them didn't understand that there were other things to do besides be a biology teacher before they started college as that was the only "real" exposure they had to the subject of biology.?ÿ
We could certainly decide that only those programs that are marketable are eligible for some form of government backed loans, but that removes the pursuit of several areas from anyone who can not afford to pay the full tuition price.?ÿ Of the areas that have the highest amount of debt one is social work.?ÿ While I've been fortunate to not need a social worker, they serve an important purpose in many people's lives.?ÿ Yet they have one of the highest debt to expected first year salary ratios.?ÿ The people choosing social work are more often doing so out of their values instead of the value of the degree.
But the marketability of the degree doesn't seem to be the only factor as I often see articles about the problem of student debt where it was a law degree that got the student into such hot water.?ÿ That is surely a marketable degree.
There are social workers who have paid off their student debt on a meager salary and lawyers and doctors who do not seem to be able to according to a bunch of articles.?ÿ There is probably more at play than just the dollar cost of the degree.
There is over a trillion in endowments, that could clear up much of the debt, and imagine how things would change it those were used.?ÿ
I suspect that if the endowments were used, that would be the change - the endowments would be used.?ÿ After they were used, we would be back to how is Sally Student going to pay for college now that all the endowments have been used.?ÿ Especially when we consider that endowments are mainly at schools that already serve a small portion of the population with many colleges having almost no endowments.
I'm not saying college isn't expensive and I'm not saying that nothing needs to be done to change the status quo.?ÿ I saw some ridiculous examples of waste when I was teaching at a college.?ÿ But, there are factors aside from the college and cost of college that also come into play such as educating young people about their choices and responsibilities before they decide what subject to take at college or even to go to college.
Whatever one's gripes are with higher education, at the very least there are minimum standards for each level of instructor from adjunct to full professor, standardized content for coursework regularly reviewed and updated by departmental boards, and evaluation of instructors from the student cohort and internal departmental reviews.
From experience, I can tell you that as with the concern about the quality of experience based on who one works for, the quality of education varies just as much.
Yes, there are minimum preferred credentials for each faculty position, but they are not always followed.?ÿ There is also some "if not this credential than at least this credential" language in many policy manuals which allow sidestepping the preferred credential.?ÿ There is also a process of listing one faculty member who meets the required credential only to have the actual teaching by a different faculty member.?ÿ In addition, it is a credential not actual subject expertise that is addressed.?ÿ One college had an adjunct with a BS degree and surveying license teach an intro to surveying course, but the boundary course was numbered high enough that the policy was a PhD had to teach it.?ÿ So an unlicensed engineering faculty member (not even civil engineering if I recall correctly) taught that course despite the fact that the licensed surveyor was willing.
Not every university has a properly working departmental review of any of the courses and in some instances suggesting that anyone else have a say in "my" coursework would be met with indignation and never move forward.?ÿ So subjects are taught well only based on did you select the correct professor when signing up for a class or who is teaching that subject this year.
Internal departmental reviews in some places are as much of a joke as they are in private practice.?ÿ If you are liked, there is no issue.?ÿ If you are not liked, but difficult to replace there is no issue.?ÿ If you are disliked and perceived as able to be replaced, you might (very small might) get released if it doesn't cause too much inconvenience.?ÿ By the way - I decided not to take the new contract offered, so this is not bitterness on my part, but I saw some colleagues treated in such manner.
Student cohort evaluations or feedback do not always matter even in these cancel culture times.?ÿ I can tell tale of a project estimating class that was top tier at one point, but after a good faculty member left and a poor hiring decision (along with a semester of student complaints about this hire) a cohort of students spent the better part of the semester cutting up cardboard pieces to form a mock up of a house this faculty member wanted to build.
I'm a believer in higher education, but after some time on the inside, there are serious reservations - even if the facade looks good.
audited by ABET. It wasn't just a rubber-stamp process, they visited and sat in on classes, interviewed students and professors, and worked with the department to modify degree tracks. Not all universities are the same, but accreditation reviews make sure that the mix of courses at each one meets standards.
The TAC/ABET accreditation process was underway the year the instructor from the cardboard cut-out example above was in place.?ÿ The department head schemed to make him as unavailable as possible and to minimize student interaction on the course work he was supposed to be covering.?ÿ A colleague of mine worked very hard to develop forms and methods for good reporting and we had meetings to make sure we were covering the expected outcomes in order to meet the accreditation process.?ÿ Our program spent a fair amount of time on the process of accreditation.
There will be absolutely no proof in existence, but we were told by the department head that another program's ABET accreditation was almost 100% made up the year the accreditation team came to visit.?ÿ He was stressing because they had nothing until shortly before the visit.
The process may be good, but again - I have reservations after seeing behind the screen.
The bogus degrees don't help but I think even if you eliminated those you still have too high of a chance of getting a poor return on your investment.?ÿ My biggest complaint about colleges and universities, and I say this being 5 years removed, is the quality of the product.?ÿ Colleges and universities don't hire professors based on their ability to teach, they hire based on degrees held, professional papers written, talks given, and other garbage that they expect will generate prestige for the school.
A kindergarten teacher has to go to school to learn how to teach, but a college professor doesn't.?ÿ This is absolutely absurd to me.?ÿ A professor can walk up to the podium and sit there for an hour telling you what they know (which ISN'T the same as teaching) and if you get it, great, and if not then oh well-- pay them 100 grand a year.?ÿ You can fight the good fight by saving up up or working your way through college in a marketable field but you still might come out with a crap product.
I'm not opposed to professors being compensated, but they need to be more than just walking encyclopedias.
The problem seems to be that they are trying to fill out the overall 4 years worth of credit requirements without hiring staff to teach in a degree program with a small enrollment.?ÿ
It is more likely that they are trying to meet the ABET accreditation requirements for mathematics and basic science.?ÿ Being an ABET degree it will require at least 30 hours of college level math and basic sciences for the program.?ÿ While the program has some leeway in choices to fill the 30 hours, they are defined by ABET.
It would be nice, for instance, to consider one math course being covered by using Wolf and Ghilani's Adjustment Computations text to teach math material as applied to surveying.?ÿ But I don't think that fits into the ABET definition of "college-level mathematics".?ÿ So, you get matrix algebra generally (not applied) instead.
In addition, there will be open warfare if you try to take a subject out of one college (department, unit, or whatever the divisions are within said university) to another.
A kindergarten teacher has to go to school to learn how to teach, but a college professor doesn't.?ÿ
I could not agree more.?ÿ When I started teaching, this was a HUGE concern for me.?ÿ So, I spent a good deal of time trying to develop some minimal skill at teaching.?ÿ Was fortunate enough as to have a resource center on campus dedicated to helping new faculty learn.?ÿ I will be so bold as to claim I made some headway, but really did not know as much about how to teach as I should have.?ÿ On the other hand, the professors are not dealing with K-12 age people, so the 'how to teach' should not be the same.
A professor can walk up to the podium and sit there for an hour telling you what they know (which ISN'T the same as teaching) and if you get it, great, and if not then oh well-- pay them 100 grand a year.
Being about 5 years removed from teaching at a college program, I also agree with this statement.?ÿ That is the basic model of education that we get exposed to throughout most of K-12 (at least used to be) and then most of the college courses are similar.?ÿ So when you have minimal other frames of reference, that is the easy one to fall back on.?ÿ Have to look for ways to engage students, but that can be very difficult with folks who aren't yet confident enough to be actively involved in their learning.
?ÿ
Edit to add - 100 grand a year may or may not be so.?ÿ In some cases you might be surprised at how low some of them are paid (or how high some get paid).
I was first hired as a community college surveying instructor based soley on my being licensed for six years at the time (and the time I took to get that license).
I was supposed to teach an advanced problems class, but only three students were brave enough to sign up for it, so it was cancelled.?ÿ I was offered the beginning surveying class and had a ball! What fun teaching the basics of surveying to civil engineering, architechtural, and other students!?ÿ I even went on to teach the intermediate class and a mapping class.
Thirty years later they needed an advanced problems teacher, but I was rejected because I didn't have a master's degree.
If I had a master's degree (in anything) I wouldn't be teaching in a commiunity college!
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!
I don't understand at all. So are you saying that you don't want someone that is specifically educated in boundary law, real estate law, subdivisions, geodesy, map projections, contract law, technical writing,?ÿ etc.??ÿ?ÿ
Writing is something that other degrees will do a better job of teaching (except engineering) and conteact law I could care less. A surveyor in business for themselves should learn contract law, and they should have opportunities to learn it, but it shouldn't be a requirement.?ÿ
Real estate law? Real estate law classes devote 20 minutes of lecture to boundaries and title.?ÿ
The other things of course, that's why we need the masters programs.?ÿ
So, are you saying that surveyors should have a?ÿ bachelor's in something other than surveying and a master's in surveying? That's an interesting proposition.
This is similar to the curriculum when I went to OIT in '94 (although we had zero GIS classes)?ÿ I had 10 years experience as a party chief and this filled in all of the holes that were there from being self-taught and going through the "mentor system".
Anyway, as far as suggestions I think the idea of a degree requirement is excellent, but the cost of tuition is a concern that needs to be addressed.
Absolutely. That's not a surveyor problem, but a USA problem. One that is easily solved if we decide to be honest with ourselves about who should and shouldn't be getting a degree, and whether more money should be allocated to athletics, to a giant rock wall at the gym, or to the education that is supposedly the main reason folks are attending.
Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise discusses that very problem in depth. It's a pretty good read.
Right, and that's why I didn't dive further into it.
I'm not sure what the best way would be to go about reigning in the cost of tuition but I think getting rid of government funded student loans might be a good start.?ÿ Right now professors don't really have to negotiate with their clients and I find it hard to believe that isn't part of the problem.
Right now professors don't really have to negotiate with their clients and I find it hard to believe that isn't part of the problem.
The problem is that we think of students as clients. They're not. Being accepted into a university program of study should be something that is earned by dint of demonstrated aptitude and hard work rather than ability to pay loads of tuition. The commercialization and commoditization of education has really messed things up.
I think getting rid of government funded student loans might be a good start.
Eh, I'm all about government-funded education. Lord knows the private sector doesn't give a damn about education as long as they rake in the profits. The USA would be a third-world country if it weren't for government-sponsored innovation and education. As it is we're barely hanging on to first-world status, in large part due to the devaluation of education as a common good and the overvaluation of education as a retail item.
I don't have kids and never will, but I want as much of my tax dollars as possible going toward education. I certainly want to live among smart and educated people rather than dumb and ignorant people. If that makes me "elitist", so be it.
