It's hard to make any generalizations across a profession that's as varied geographically and economically as surveying in the US (and it's not limited to surveying - ask a Wall Street lawyer and a guy in a three person practice in Natchez Mississippi about the issues facing the legal profession and you won't get the same answers either) - but my $0.02 (or 0.04'):
1. We need a career paraprofessional track for people who can't or don't want to be licensed. Something similar to a paralegal or a physicians assistant with a set education and certification requirement (probably a two year degree stressing technical aspects that could also serve as technological foundation for the four year degree). These paraprofessional need to be treated as such; as much as I like playing the grizzled veteran with my guys phrases like CAD Monkey and Brush Ape need to be purged from our vocabulary. They also need to be paid at a level that can buy a decent house and support a family in the area where you work - anything less and the business owner is doing the profession as much of a disservice as if he/she were out setting pincushions.
2. Even given that boundary retracement is the raison d'̻tre for licensure, most surveyors are going to need to use their skills in other income generating business endeavors to keep enough cash flowing into the surveying business to support a vibrant profession that can, for example, pay the people in point one above.
From my point of view and experience (and, of course based solely on my regional set of anecdotal evidence) one thing surveyors need to do is take charge of the land development process. We're the first one on the site and the last ones to leave, but when a developer wants to start a new project the first person they contact is almost always an architect or civil engineer. This isn't because the practice of civil engineering or architecture statutorily includes land development project management, or that the reason for engineering and architecture licensure is to provided for land development project management, it's because architect and civil engineers saw a business market that could drive revenue to their core competencies. And recognizing this fact, they've integrated it into their professional educations, these are some of the courses offered in local engineering and architecture degree programs that count toward the coursework in their major:
[INDENT]Introduction to Engineering Project Management
Project Cost Accounting and Economics
Project Planning, Estimating & Scheduling
Communications for Project Managers
Legal Aspects of Architectural & Engineering Practice
Construction Documentation and BIM Applications in Engineering and Construction
Introduction To Urban Planning
Selected Topics in Architecture; Building Information Modeling in Professional Practice: Visual Communication and Collaboration
Introduction to Real Estate Principles, Process and Practice/Finance
Development Law, Process and Ethics
Planning Policy, Practice and Politics for Developers
Essentials of Design and Construction Management
Capital Markets and Investments
Retail Real Estate Development and Asset Management
[/INDENT]
These are the kinds of classes that need to be added to survey degree programs that will allow potential students to see a profitable path forward by investing in the degree program.
A last point in the same vein, whenever I hear a surveyor ask others about their opinion of his/her opportunity for teaming/partnering with an engineer a lot of people will toss out the pros and cons from their experience and suggest either going for it or staying independent. Here's a novel idea, if the market is there how about the surveyor hiring an engineer and putting the shoe on the other foot and having the engineer be the surveyor's b!tch for once.
Spoke with a former co-worker who took the PS on Friday in GA. He said there was a total of 6 people taking the exam.
We had 8-9 didn't count in New Orleans
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