First Let me say that I believe in Continuing Education. I recently attended our State Surveyors’ Society Conference. I earned 12 hours of mandatory education and 3 hours of elective education.
Let’s rough in some numbers.
I lost 3 days of potential billing, or roughly $3,000 at $125/hour
I spent another $1,000 for registration, hotel and food.
I will need to do this again next year to get all the hours needed for the 2 year renewal cycle.
This equals $8,000 for continuing education.
Most of the classes offered are simply rehashed material from travelling mouth pieces that may or may not be familiar with, or care about, our specific state laws.
This continuing education is a rip-off.
Why not abandon “mandatory” continuing education, raise the renewal fee by an order of magnitude, and chase the incompetent, cheating ne'er-do-wells out of the business with the extra fees raised?
Some of these folks will likely quit due to the cost of admission.
What say you?
This ought to spark some debate
Clearly, there are at least two sides to this topic. Some people run to the far extreme in one direction, others run to the far extreme in the other direction and then there are the majority sort of stuck in the middle who aren't happy but go with the flow.
What happens on this Board day in and day out is a better representation of what continuing education should be about than what most of us are exposed to in sessions such as what you attended. The problem is that "the powers that be" can't get in your pocket without demanding your attendance in traditional, formalized continuing education programs. Also, there is no reliable mechanism with which to check up on you to verify that you are really "in attendance". Your computer might be present, but, that is no guarantee that you are actually present. And, besides, you might only be tuned in when most of the discussion happens to be about non-surveying topics.
I say there are some incompetent (cheating ne'er-do-wells) folks likely doing well financially in this business, that could afford your proposed fees because of ignorance.
I was always taught that surveying was a constant learning process. You on the other hand, must know everything. Well, at least more than the talking mouth pieces do. For a guy that knows everything and gets nothing out of these opportunities for continuing education, along with stating your being billable %100 of your hours in January, a mere $4,000 shouldn't set you back too far come year end.
Besides there are additional continuing education opportunities for lesser amounts. There are other surveyors not as educated as you.., that can take away from the conferences, and knowledge from the traveling mouths 🙂
Could you tell me what state? I do not want to move there.
Below is a letter sent to the Arizona Board of Technical Registration regarding their hearing on maybe implementing continuing education being pushed by some members of APLS. I also have a lot of documents that was sent to accompany the letter.
April 14, 2011
Charles L. Dowdell, PLS
Secretary and the Past President of the Southeastern Chapter of APLS
529 East Highway 82
Huachuca City, Arizona 85616
Arizona State Board of Technical Registration
Attn: Patricia Sandino
1110 West Washington Street, Suite 240
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
RE: The Continuing Education Proposal to be Presented to the Board at the April 26, 2011 Board Meeting
Board Members:
We of the Southeastern Chapter of APLS do not favor having Mandatory Continuing Education forced on us and on behalf of the Southeastern Chapter of APLS I am forwarding the included documents regarding why we do not need the Mandatory Continuing Education burden placed on the licensees in order to renew their Land Surveyors License. Some of these are from the 1990’s, by others and myself, from another state when they were proposing this fiasco on those holding surveying and engineering licenses. Some documents are replies to the 1998 boondoggle, “Voluntary Mandatory Continuing Education” that APLS tried to implement in 1998. Another is a paper from Knud Hermansen documenting “Why we do not need Mandatory Continuing Education”. Mr. Hermansen, as you will note on his paper and in the body of it, has many qualifications and is a highly respected professional in many elements and has published many papers in regards to the legal issues and many other topics related to engineering and surveying and also has given many seminars and classes on various subjects. As he stated, he is also an educator.
As with the Wyoming hearing held in September 1991, all the negative comments, which were by most if not all those present, seemed to go in one ear and out the other of the members of the Wyoming Board. This more than likely was the fact that the Board chairman at that time was an educator at the University of Wyoming.
I am not against doing continuing education, as I attended many classes and seminars long before it was made mandatory in Wyoming, but as with a lot of others, do not think it needs to be made mandatory. I still attend seminars and classes, take online courses when I find the ones that I have not already attended. Mandatory Continuing Education is not going to weed out those that are incompetent. There are some people that think we need Continuing Education in order to increase membership in State Societies. If this is the reason to force this upon the licensee, then this is a poor excuse to require it.
As others and I have stated before, “The only ones that will benefit from this are the educators”.
Many more important issues should be addressed by surveyors and the licensing boards other than Mandatory Continuing Education. The use of GPS devices by the general public without the knowledge of just what they are doing and relying on GIS data to “Survey their own property or that of their friends with a substandard handheld GPS unit. Contractors using GPS doing their own layout work and machine control for projects using non licensed personnel to perform these functions, which in most instances is related to boundary surveying is another item that needs to be addressed. Another thing APLS should concentrate on instead of Mandatory Continuing Education is the deregulation proposals that are happening in three states. If these proposals get going nationwide and are adopted by all the states, what good is the Mandatory Continuing Education concept being implemented going to do? Although this is only in three of the fifty states now, how long will it take the other states to follow along? According to some discussion, regarding this, this concept is being pushed into legislation by the political body at the urging of the real estate industry, some title companies and other entities. The surveying organizations should concentrate more on, and put their efforts into halting the preparation of land description by anyone that can do this now, realtors, attorneys, the general public and others that do not have to seal or sign their work and do this without all the knowledge of how to prepare a proper land description that gets recorded for posterity. Also, the title companies and attorneys rewriting a land description prepared, signed and sealed by a professional Land Surveyor is another practice that should be eliminated.
APLS would better serve the Profession by concentrating on educating the public, realtors, attorneys, contractors and other related professionals as to what constitutes a survey, boundary or other surveying functions, just what all is involved in providing the service for them, then pursue the Mandatory Continuing Education requirement if they still feel it is necessary. Until we, the professional can educate those we provide our services to, all the required Mandatory Continuing Education is not going to make one bit of difference to anyone. Requiring Mandatory Continuing Education now is like putting the cart before the horse. It seems that everyone knows more about surveying than the surveyor does.
UT Veyor,
Maybe you missed my opening sentence in the initial post, so I will post it again: "First Let me say that I believe in Continuing Education."
I typically earn 2 to 3 times the required continuing education per renewal cycle. Being required to listen to the same topic year after year is for those folks that either cannot read for themselves or don't pick up on things too quickly.
As far as the rate evaluation goes, I posted it for an example of "potential billing". I am rarely billable all day ever day. My rate is much higher than the example.
Please pay attention when reading posts. It will help with a dialogue.
Arizona is my kind of state society.
Richard I found it odd when surveyors like myself came from overseas to your conferences that US surveyors would not come to listen because we were not accredited for your CE program.
I thought CE was even hearing about how others surveyed so we could all learn and potential glean/ share.
So my 2 cents contribution would be to suggest conference organisers permit attendees to listen to "out of towners" by crediting them the same points, so that at least the presentation is appreciated and an option for those who are tired of rehearing the repeats from circuit talkers.
RADU
> UT Veyor,
> Maybe you missed my opening sentence in the initial post, so I will post it again: "First Let me say that I believe in Continuing Education."
>
> I typically earn 2 to 3 times the required continuing education per renewal cycle. Being required to listen to the same topic year after year is for those folks that either cannot read for themselves or don't pick up on things too quickly.
>
> As far as the rate evaluation goes, I posted it for an example of "potential billing". I am rarely billable all day ever day. My rate is much higher than the example.
>
> Please pay attention when reading posts. It will help with a dialogue.
Mr Davidson,
I agree with your post 1000%, most of it is nothing but re-hashed BS. It has become a cottage industry for some out there.I'm thinking the only out of this vicious cycle is mandatory college credits. Don't get me wrong, there are some learning opportunities at some of these,but I find them few and far between.
Everybody has their own level of satisfaction, if somebody thinks their system isn't broke; more power to them. I personally am not satisfied with what is and isn't considered satisfactory fulfillment and acceptable subject matters.
Two state surveying association members say, "Hey, we made forty thousand at the seminar."
The other members says, "That's half of what we pay our executive secretary!!"
I believe mandatory continuing education is a good thing for any profession. Whether getting all of your required education at a state conference is the best way might be up for debate but there are many ways to get the required education.
Most states would probably accredit your presentation as "elective" credits.
You will get no argument from me that "continuing education" is a good thing. It is making it mandatory that I have an issue with. The old adage you can lead a horse to water.
Why not chase the violators like Arizona? And leave the "Professionals" alone?
In Florida, you can fill your 2-year (24 credit) requirement with correspondence courses or internet courses for less than $500 total. Have you considered this?
First, kudos for evaluating opportunity costs. I would note that you didn't go far enough in your opportunity cost. Yes, you calculated the easy ones, i.e., money/time lost, but you failed to look at the money if you don't get the CEU's. Easy mistake and easy choice if you look at the overall.
That being said, I view CEU's as another opportunity cost. Texas has "Heart of Texas" retracements where other surveyors can get together and eat and go to class over 2 1/2 days in pretty cool country. Sure, it costs and I get the requisite CEU's and I can keep my license, but I also get intrinsic value from those getaways. First, it's a mini vacation. Your time is worth something and your mental time is worth even more. Second, I've had a blast with folks like Andy Nold at those things also.
Find the good ones that allow you to recharge your batteries. That's where you truly "make your money" and network well in an environment that is conducive to what you need to accomplish.
As I stated before I get plenty of CEUs on a yearly basis. I question having to take the same courses repeatedly as "mandatory" classes on state law.
And, to UT Veyor. I have taught some of these "mandatory" classes on state law at the state conference.
Yes - I understand from your post that you are a proponent of continued education. My take was that one of the ways a profession is recognized as a profession is by having required continuing education.
I agree with you as well Mr. Richardson. I have grown up in surveying and have always heard surveyors talk about classes being the same old dribble, not to say some classes aren't good learning experiences.
This may not be "correct thinking" and not something you do to sell the idea of con ed, but one of the biggest benefits is that it makes retired people retire!
Raising the renewal fee has the same effect of making them retire.