@bill93 I had the privilege, while doing my masters, to lecture the third year land and surveying law class at my alma mater. I think I have a pretty good handle on the fundamentals now, but the legalese still boggles my brain from time to time. But in the same breath, regional idiosyncrasies of traditional, colonial, common and case law are impossible to cover in breadth at university (trust me, I tried, but with 11 official languages, a mixed Dutch and English colonial history, and more than 9 forms of traditional law, an overview is the best one can hope for!)
With only two universities in the country offering the 4 year degree, the law component is a requirement for both. The minimum requirements of the curricula for both universities are determined by the national professional council's education and training board.
You are speaking from South Africa, and the situation in the USA is similar if not complicated in the same manners.?ÿ But my point was that not even that overview of laws was listed in most of the other replies. The answers are complicated, but one could graduate and not even know what questions to ask.
My view is that curriculum be designed with outcomes in mind. These were ours:
I bemoan the attitude that the university should perform the sort of training once expected of employers. Of course there are few people who will work for one employer their entire careers.
I interpret many of the wish lists in this thread to reflect the view that university training must directly address the desires of the employer not preparing students for a professional career. ?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ
I bemoan the attitude that the university should perform the sort of training once expected of employers. Of course there are few people who will work for one employer their entire careers.
The attitude mentioned in the first sentence is a big part of why that second sentence is true.
Personally, I would have stayed at prior employers', but either (a) my supervisors and management had little to no interest in both training and mentoring their employees, or (b) even after minimal mentoring was received, employees faced a dead-end path due to siloing and an assembly-line mentality.
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My dad was a professional too. But he was a chemical engineer, and his experience was completely different from mine. From the moment he got done with formal education (1970s), his employers put him in an internal mentorship program complete with standardized review periods, skill assessments, and on-the-clock hours dedicated to one-on-one training with the guys who managed projects that could make or break the firm.
They regularly sent him to training courses, seminars, and conferences, paying for travel and lodging. He did the same thing for employees my age after he moved up, and he really loved that part of his job.
Not coincidentally, he only worked for 3-4 employers over ~45 years. That's how you get loyal employees.
By contrast, I have worked for 7 (technically eight if you count the buyout) employers over 17 years and can't say that I have ever considered one of them as a possible "forever" employer. Including my current one.
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I fight tooth and nail just to get myself sent to anything more than our state conference, even as a licensee. What's especially galling is that we are way, way more productive than two or even one generation ago, thanks to technological innovation and the digital revolution (no disrespect to the immense amounts of effort and hard work by those who came before us, because they definitely had it tougher). It shouldn't be difficult to send every single one of your professional-track employees to every possible seminar you can.
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Upthread, I mentioned that I went back to school at 33 for my four-year degree. The firm I was working for at the time had a tuition reimbursement program, but I was older than 25 so I didn't qualify. I paid for every penny of my tuition out of pocket and it was well worth it. But I left my employer as soon as I graduated, even though I liked a good chunk of the folks I worked with.
Don't want to advance your people? Expect the good ones to leave, and the mediocre (and worse) ones to stay.
@rover83 If I could triple like I would. ?ÿBecause of technology and productivity we have almost lost the mentoring aspect. Now take it from a poor grammer person who has been lucky enough to view the profession from many angles. One as a person who started out as a rodman or bush a e swinging machine. But I was mentored and taught how to take what I was learning at college and apply it on the job. My first 7 years in private sector under 3 different companies and many crew chiefs managers worked with me and pointed me in the right direction. ?ÿThen 5 years as a Marine we will not count that but after the Marines back on private side a an instructor to private sector I saw the good and bad companies the good and bad managers. ?ÿSkip some years while at the government. Back now in private sector I am slowly learning which people and companies mentor. ?ÿIt has very much become the assembly line approach. I have spent in the last year and a half over 5k of my own money to send my self to conferences, convention, prep class, chapter meetings study materials and testing fees. ?ÿNot that my manager did not try several ways to get me reimbursed for at-least the testing fee and prep classes. It is what it is I guess. ?ÿThat doesn??t include i was not making money either. Now i am an older person not a young buck so I don??t hold that against the company because i have seen them offer a longer term employee to go back and get prepared for same exam. They have paid for him once already but he never took the exam. And still doesn??t want to take the exam. I have offered to help him and told him he could pass. He gets a good title and gets to play boss without the responsibility. ?ÿThat is not uncommon in some companies. Not that its my long term place for those reasons. ?ÿ
It seems to me that training could be a good way to invest in people attract people the right people as part of the pay benefits package . ?ÿBecause wages is about the only thing that has not risen in the past 20 years for surveyors who are not licensed. But thats in my little world. The bill sent to a client has risen as well as cost to do business. Technology has in places dropped relative. GPS cost 50k for a system now 25 to 30k approximately. ?ÿLess personal to do same job in less time. ?ÿ
I agree with GEOID mike that university should not have to teach what employers/professionals should be teaching. However it??s a two sided sword. The university is under the scope of getting money in and that comes from students coming in and graduating. So unlike the past the balance of that vs truly teaching is in jeopardy. My professors from the 90??s were old crusty guys smart as a whip. I didn??t see it at the time but in elementary surveying courses the. Vs in around 2008 I went back to school to take more advanced surveying courses. Like it or not it was not the same caliber. My professor sat me down and said hey just take this exam you know this and pay the money and get credit. Because of my training at Defense Mapping School. But I wanted to learn and I wasted a semester on a subject trying to learn new things. It was not much more than elementary surveying from the 90??s. ?ÿOnly difference was reducing grid ground and a little talk about datums and projection. ?ÿ
I worked with a young man on a project as an intern. He was from another country. There surveying school was like 5 years long. Both in class and out of class all day every day. ?ÿHe knew his stuff. He was working to get it credited by the board in a state. Was having a tough time. I hope he did get it because he was way more qualified in the sciences math than any crew chief or most surveyors I knew. ?ÿWay smarter than I. Of course I am not the brightest anyway. ?ÿ
All we can hope is that a four year degree can give enough of a foundation to build on and professionals will do the rest. Or we will be doomed. ?ÿI think there are enough good mentors still in the business for sure. I love surveying as much as farming. And farming don??t pay well but it pays more than surveying for me right now. I am slowly getting out of one aspect of farming to focus more on surveying. It is a tough gamble at my age. I could work at wawa or sheets and make as much as i am surveying honestly. Target advertises more for no experience than what some good crew chiefs make here. It is crazy to hear managers and professionals say we need more education we need more people and then offer a graduate peanut??s. Engineers have seen this and have adapted their pay scales for entry level. GIS community has a good handle on this. You can get a GIS certificate and make more than a young person with a BS degree and few years experience in surveying. ?ÿI understand the market will only allow so much cost to perform a survey. But if covid has taught any of us anything is it can handle a lot higher prices than many thought. When a client doesn??t care if it cost 3x??s more than a couple years ago to do same job. Developers don??t need a nickel holding up a dime. Raise your rates raise wages some take a little and send guys to training. Take one day a month or a quarter and pay your employees to sit through a education class or something. Heck so many online seminars through a variety of sources some don??t cost at except you paying your employee to sit through it.?ÿ
i went through OPUS projects not long ago. Asked the boss for day off and told him why. Said I will come in and adjust the project we had earlier that morning if he would allow me to use the company computer. Mine stinks and the wife who was hosting the event don??t like me being around when she is working lol. He had to get permission for that to happen. I had to give 2 hrs of time to do it. That??s reality here. That is the things that need fixing. Way to many talented good attitude hard working young folks that will soon see this and leave the profession. If we don??t fix it.?ÿ
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I am a student (forever student it seems). I thought it interesting that you folks didn't mention CAD or C3D. It seems to me you need at least two semesters of CAD to get reasonably proficient.?ÿ
Had a close friend who graduated from college with me.?ÿ Her major was Chemical Engineering.?ÿ She was snapped up by a major oil company as she was incredibly sharp and she was a female in an area with darn few female graduates at the time.?ÿ She was put in with a group of other new hires to the company.?ÿ They all spent the first 12 months of their employment with the company attending classes provided by the company.?ÿ Every day for 12 months.?ÿ They were not assigned to be productive until they had gone through the corporate training.
@rover83?ÿ
Word.?ÿ I have developed the belief that if you're not willing to invest in your employees they shouldn't waste time divesting their future in your dead end.?ÿ You always have great sentient sage tidbits for the cause when I need them here. thank you.?ÿ Coffee or beer on me when I get past the FS and time allows.
carry on.
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One recommendation I have is to teach a quick lecture and lab or two about using Microsoft Excel...even just a general overview of how it works and practice of a few basic functions like "SUM" or "Sort by Values". I'm not sure if this is already taught in high school since we are well into the digital age nowadays, but it's something I wish more of the new people were comfortable with when entering the profession (especially when they get their first csv of points that doesn't import correctly).
When I was teaching, we (the department) ended up adding in a course that would be a general overview of the civil/surveying/construction/environmental?ÿ paths so students could be sure they were in the right one for them.?ÿ The course incorporated assignments using word processing and spreadsheets.
Part of the reason we decided to add it was the very low number of students that were familiar with those software packages.?ÿ I was surprised by how many students hadn't even seen a spreadsheet or couldn't use some of the basic elements of a word processor.?ÿ When I was growing up, home computers were just barely becoming a thing.?ÿ So a lot of kids then were always learning to use software on their own time just because it was so novel.
Good luck with 60 hours. The only 4 year program in NY offers 46 hours of surveying specific classes, it is ABET accredited.
Yeah.?ÿ 60 is a maximum and would require the faculty time to be able to cover that many hours.
That looks like a pretty good program.?ÿ I was probably a little more liberal in what I considered survey specific because I came up with about 56 hours in that program.
@norman-oklahoma Technical Communication is a very important one.?ÿ I like that the program you linked had an intro course in the first level and then built on that in the fourth level.
@rover83 It is interesting that the program you linked had a core curriculum that included: Business Law I, Organizational Theory and Behavior, Economic Analysis and Operations, and Professional Ethics.
It is nice to see a little emphasis on the business and organization side of professional practice.?ÿ Really nice to see a course geared directly towards Professional Ethics.?ÿ It looks like the ethics course was in the philosophy department.?ÿ Was it well geared towards professional ethics or was it more of a philosophy class?
Try and figure out how to use other required classes and requirements that are not surveying but designed to meet both ?ÿsurveying and broad diverse background .
Oh what a wonderful thought!!?ÿ If you could get others within an institution on board that would be really great to implement.
I'm probably being very pessimistic from my experiences, but this wonderful idea ties back to the post about Gomer Pyle.
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It seems to me you need at least two semesters of CAD to get reasonably proficient.?ÿ
Good observation about the time required to become reasonably proficient (in any aspect of surveying even Dave's idea of setting up a tripod!).?ÿ That is one of the difficulties of a college education - it is not 40+ hours a week spent as on the job training.?ÿ You can learn the fundamentals and have a very good grasp of the theory and math, but the daily application of those ideas while working is when the whole process begins to really become clear.?ÿ IMO
@jon-payne That is the tough part for sure. It would take a great sales person to pitch that to those professors that teach a lot of the other classes to learn enough about surveying to communicate that in the new designed class. Because if you take students from them then they will argue against it for sure. Which would not help either side. Someone would have to be on there A game to write say technical writing class with all the examples for the surveying and engineering students. I took technical writing twice from a two year school and a 4 year university two different states Because the 4 year program would not give me credit this was less than 2 years apart. I still have the notebook i used in both and the syllabus of each. Same book same scenarios same exams all most identical . All about directions and instructions for baby cribs and other things. Good fun class just could very easily be tailored for the science and engineering and surveying and accomplish the same thing. ?ÿ
Oh that Gomer Clip just allowed me to be used as a teachable moment for my two daughters. When they heard the singing they said who is that. I had them guessing for a while. Finally I said Gomer Pyle. No way is what they said. When I showed them and they watched. I was able to say never judge a book by its cover. Never judge someone on how they look or how they talk they may sur-prize you. Lol.?ÿ
