I recent reply on a different thread pushed me to see what you all have to say about what defines us as "Professionals". Is it a 4 year degree?
I'll relate my own personal experiences. I dropped out of HS in my Jr. year at the age of 17 and got my GED immediately to get my father off my back. At 18, I accidently got a job as a Rod Man, never knowing anything about land surveying or what was involved in it, but I fell in love with it, with the intent of making it a career. After a few years, I had my eyes set on running a crew and getting my license eventually and had great mentors to support me in learning enough to advance myself. I spent thousands on books and every piece of study material that I could get my hands on, studied 7 days a week for three years, asked questions of other licensees with more years of experience than I had been alive, and, with the degree requirement looming, filed my application with the requisite 10 years of experience to sit for the exam. The end result was that I passed the exam and with my licensure, got a frameable certificate with the clear title "Professional Land Surveyor".
After years of working for a civil engineering & land surveying company, with my license, I evolved into project management, then management and ultimately becoming the first non degreed shareholder in the company's 100+ year history. During this time, I got married and one day was playing golf with my father in law, he was a high level retired executive with Firestone Tires. He asked me an important question, "where do you see yourself in 10 or 20 years? My reply to that was that was I want to be at the top of my game.
After hearing my response, he departed his wisdom on me. He told me that if you want to be an effective leader and manager, you need to move from place to place every couple of years to see how different firms are doing the same things, see the different forms of management approaches and the different ways leadership treats their employees so that you get a firm understanding of what works and what doesn't work and apply that when it's time to.
I took that advice and he was correct, I experienced the good, the bad and the very ugly. I learned virtually every aspect of running a business, being an effective leader, and, most importantly, to mentor, encourage and elevate my staff when they reach certain goals.
Nine years ago I was sought out by a very small engineering firm to start a survey department and this was my dream shot. I negotiated for three months with the CEO before accepting the position. They pretty much knew nothing about what it takes to run survey and gave me full reign to do what was need in hiring, training, purchasing and every other aspect of managing a staff that consisted of myself being the 12th employee of this small company. Flash forward to today, we have had to move to two different locations because of growth, I have a staff of 30 with 6 field crews, survey techs, drafters and admin staff and the engineering end has almost 60 people, including 5 PEs and we have opened two engineering offices in Florida. I will soon be applying for my FLA PLS license and setting both up with a PLS in each to oversee their operation.
After this long winded history of my almost 41 years in the profession and the experiences that I have had, does a 4 year degree and 3 years of experience make somebody that I would have to mentor a Professional and me a Tradesman? I'm interested in hearing your replies.
As a fellow with a 4 year degree in Surveying Engineering, and only a fraction of your accomplishments, you strike me as supremely professional.
I would not say supremely but I'm not without the education.
Education comes in many different forms. A degree is fantastic for some and a calamity for others. I know many with degrees working for entry level wages because their degree was a mis-match for their path. Further those degrees were more a burden to them as they have to make payments on the loans for most of their productive lives. I have a degree but I would say 99% of my knowledge in surveying came (and indeed still comes) from the people that I have the pleasure of working with or have been in close association. A degree can help accelerate some position moves in survey but far from a necessity.
Many of the best surveyors that I know have only a HS diploma or GED. All of them were or are professional.
I'm a 4-year degree holder as well and as far as professionalism goes the biggest problem I run into doesn't have anything to do with the degree, it's unlicensed guys who have been surveying a while thinking they can argue with me on stuff. I don't get that from other licensed individuals like engineers, only from unlicensed surveyors. I find it highly unprofessional and I have no idea where it comes from...
I do not have a degree and entered the profession full time at 19. I have about 27 1/2 years at this point. The rest of my background is in another thread about degree requirements.
IMO I had to put in more effort than a degree holder due to having to prove myself since I did not have the education. When I became a supervisor I was in the field with a surveyor and we were discussing degree requirements. He had a degree but was not licensed. I just finished telling him I did not have a degree but was licensed in AL. The next thing he said was that states needed to have a 4 year degree requirement otherwise the profession will be destroyed by folks without degrees! LOL I have heard similar comments throughout my career and currently there are some that would love to see me fail because of my lack of degree and/or my opinions...BTW I ignore the naysayers and continue moving forward.
My answer to your question should be obvious. The person with a degree is NOT elevated to being professional only because of the degree. IMO, professionalism is about actions and how a person carries themselves not a piece of paper. Therefore I consider some folks without degrees, such as yourself, to be Professionals. All about the action (experience) and how they carry themselves.
History is replete with examples of evolution in professions. At one time many accomplished physicians and lawyers had little or no formal education. They read everything they could and worked under (and eventually with) mentors. That model changed to require advanced degrees, together with internships and examinations.
Land Surveyors kept the mentor / intern model longer than many other professions. As our business model changed the path for self-education and internship to professional has gotten very narrow. The States are at differing stages of reducing or eliminating that option. Some will keep it for the exceptional circumstances, and others will pass the experience evaluation to the educational institutions.
I don't belive the question is trade versus professional, but rather in which era of the profession did we earn our credentials.
I am the individual who started the other thread that you contributed to and I appreciate your reply then and this new thread. I know quite a few surveyors around my area and all but 1 of them have 2 year degrees with experience in the field as their education and work history. I have not observed any difference regarding their professionalism. The 2 year guys have been in the business longer and are doing almost all of the work with established reputations. I have the opportunity to do some work in a neighboring state, but cannot get a license with 24 years experience and holding a license in my current state for 14 of those years due to having a 2 year degree instead of a 4 year. I have seen multiple plats in that state by different surveyors and performed since 2017 that were very vague and lacked basic information on their plats that just rubs salt in the wounds of not being able to get licensed in that state. The only area in my career that I can see a benefit to having a 4 year degree is being able to get licensed in certain states that require it. As far as being able to perform the work and make calculations and decisions necessary for the job, I feel my experience has prepared me well for it. I definitely the OP as a professional in the field. I also thinks it’s pretty crazy that multiple states can allow a non-degree individual before a certain date to become licensed and not allow a 2 year degree with experience individual to become licensed, regardless of when it was achieved. I don’t see the ethics in the thought of “it was good enough then, but not now”.
In my opinion, 2 year degree or not, if you have the progressive experience and professional references testifying to it, you should be able to sit for the exam, especially after having been licensed in a nearby state.
Tell that to Illinois. Two-year degree in Indiana with more survey hours than required by Illinois. Twenty four years of experience. Licensed in three states including neighboring Missouri (2006). And I live in Illinois. They told me to go fly a kite without a 4 year degree.
Alabama told me they had a 2 year route in a bill back in 2018 and some surveyors had it pulled out right before it got voted on. It’s absolutely ridiculous IMO. We have multiple state board members with 2 year degrees. If I had taken the exam before 2009, I believe, I could sit for the exam without a degree based solely on experience, even though I had a degree, but since I became licensed in 2010, and I believe I had the years of experience required by AL and a license in an adjoining state, they won’t allow it.
I think that's absurd. I was licensed in NJ in 1993 and am contemplating going for my FLA license in the near future. Because of the age of my licensure, I am exempt there from the degree requirement.
As someone who has seen my fair share of applications for a land surveyor license, I tend to agree that while education is a good thing, actual, broad-based, real world, quality surveying experience is a great thing. I too only have some college education and began surveying a couple months before I turned 18 years old and I wouldn't trade any of it for a degree. I do not fault those who went the degree route nor do I fault the ones who went the experience route.
I believe state licensing boards who remain open-minded about acceptable pathways to licensure are far better at understanding what the public needs from services provided by a licensed land surveyor. Most of the efforts I've seen at limiting it solely to the education route tend to do so with alternate agendas in mind about what's best for how the public perceives the profession rather than how the public truly benefits from the profession.
"At one time many accomplished physicians and lawyers had little or no formal education. They read everything they could and worked under (and eventually with) mentors. That model changed to require advanced degrees, together with internships and examinations."
California (along with 3 other states, I think) provides a non-degree route to the bar exam, similar to an apprenticeship. If it's good enough for lawyers, it's good enough for surveyors, IMO.
"California (along with 3 other states, I think)"
Virginia, Vermont & Washington (I think). I think California has an exam they refer to as the "Baby Bar" where the candidate has to pass before they are admitted to take the official state bar exam.
Yeah, the non-degreed attorney route requires multiple years of documented study - not work - under an attorney or a judge, with written examinations and reports that must be submitted twice a year. After the first year you have to take the "baby bar" along with folks attending unaccredited law school programs. Then you have three more years of study, exams, and documentation to prove that you actually did this.
Law Office Study program candidates comprise something like 1 percent of bar examinees.
I don't know of an experience-only route for surveyors that requires anything near as rigorous. I'd gladly support it, though. Instead we have the "yeah I worked for a guy for a few years and I also worked on boundary stuff" model.
I don’t believe the question is trade versus professional, but rather in which era of the profession did we earn our credentials.
This is what everyone seems to forget when discussing the evolution of licensure requirements.
No one is dismissing, or devaluing - or revoking - licenses.
No one is saying we should just hand out licenses to graduates. Experience and mentorship are just as critical as education.
Right now, higher education in the USA is a mixed bag at best - that goes for pretty much all professions - but of course it's going to be even worse without the support of the very people who stand to benefit from it. That's not a failure of higher education itself and doesn't invalidate it.
I only have 5 years experience, so I don’t really feel like I can chime in overall, but I’ll share my experience.
But I did a 3-4 year apprenticeship with local 12, and just started yesterday on a bachelors degree in survey engineering tech from U of Maine.
I don’t have a mentor here yet, and am thinking of moving out of state in the next few years. That state requires a bachelors to sit for the PS, so I figured I’d get started now.
Anyway, I don’t think there’s any one standard route to professionalism. OP, your experience sounds excellent, and you’ve made some smart decisions with proven success.
I think the proof is in the pudding, and I assume few would say “but he doesn’t have a degree”.
Myself, I want the insurance of having a bachelors degree for future stability and opportunity, and after enrolling in the program, I feel great about what it will offer me in terms of learning, mentorship, and opportunity.
Others I know of “chain out”, have great careers and never look back. I just can’t trust that it’ll hold up over time, and I’m looking for “more”
The issue is in government. State politicians want to ensure that all licensed professionals have the skills required to protect public health and safety. They don't know anything about our trade and practice, but they do know that engineers are required to have degrees. And that land surveyors are licensed by the same board.
"California (along with 3 other states, I think) provides a non-degree
route to the bar exam, similar to an apprenticeship. If it’s good enough
for lawyers, it’s good enough for surveyors, IMO."
I may be mistaken, but I think California is the only one with a non-degree route. The other 3 just allow for not having a law degree, but still require a bachelor's degree in something. And as rover states, there is a very formal training format for the individual following this method that is essentially a one on one degree with four years of 18 hours per week each six months. Hours wise that is the same as a four year degree. With one on one interaction with supervising attorney/judge, that is much more than someone in college will get.
What surveying companies are providing that level of training to their personnel? Notice that the supervising attorney (not some crew chief or draft person) must personally supervise at least 5 hours of this study. I know some folks who are doing a very good job of training surveying technicians, but it would not be close to the requirements set forth in the linked program.
Any state that requires a professional degree should provide a degree at a state institution that meets the requirement. Sadly that is clearly lacking for surveying.
