213 Quarter Credits Equal 160 Regular Credits
Interesting.
ASCE is (well, at least they were) advocating that the "first professional degree" should be a minimum of a masters degree before an engineer should consider sitting for their PE exam. In NH your required engineering experience can be reduced to 3 years with a masters to sit for PE.
The argument... A typical ABET civil engineering undergrad degree requires only 120 credit hours.
Whereas... A typical accountant requires a masters degree and 150 credits plus experience before sitting for their accounting license exam.
In other words, ASCE and other groups like NSPE are advocating masters degrees in the model law for engineering licensure.
If I recall correctly, the actual buzz words are "bachelors plus 30" meaning undergrad plays 30 credits. Obviously a masters degree covers the credits but they are saying you don't neccesarily need to matriculate in a masters program.
I wonder if NSPS should consider a similar "bachelors plus 30” approach for surveying.
I believe the underlying efforts are to ultimately improve the professional standing of engineers with respect to the other learned, regulated professions.
I agree the licensed surveying industry needs to I prove its outward professional standing.
I also suggest (while I donn my fireproof suit, expecting flames...) that there should be two licensed surveyors; a)boundary and b)construction.
A Typical ABET CE Program Exceeds 120 Credits
Florida has a state law limiting Bachelors degrees to 120 credits.
University of Florida has a BS Geomatics at 120 credits, yet there BS CE is 131 credits.
NJIT has a BS Survey Engineering Technology at 128 credits and a BS CE at 132 credits.
Penn State has a BS Survey Engineering at 132 credits and a BS CE at 130 credits.
A combined BS SE and BS CS is a total of 179 credits.
When I graduated from Lehigh University BS CE with 142 credits, 136 were required. Today 130 are required.
I would say across the board the average BS CE is 130 credits not 120.
NCEES has to be careful in saying a Masters is required and should instead call for a typical Masters equivalent 150 credits. Most BS CEs can easily exceed 150 credits with a bachelors degree plus a graduate certificate program in a specialty, 15-18 credits.
Paul in PA, PE, PLS, one degree but 194 credits.
Bachelors Plus 30 For PLS? I Disagree
There are only a few graduate survey programs in the US, and even in those programs there are not 30 graduate surveying credits to be found.
There are at least twice s many or more places to get a Masters in GIS than a Masters in Surveying. However even those programs have an average of only 15 graduate GIS credits. The other credits are more general in nature.
If one must have more than a BS surveying degree let me propose the following.
1/ A BS Surveying with 42 Surveying credits and 3 years boundary experience.
2/ A BS Surveying with 36 Surveying credits and 4 years boundary experience.
3/ A BS Surveying with 30 Surveying credits and 5 years boundary experience.
4/ A BS Civil Engineering and 30 Surveying credits and 5 years boundary experience.
4/ An AS Surveying with 30 Surveying credits and 6 years boundary experience.
5/ An AS Surveying with 24 Surveying credits and 7 years boundary experience.
Not that the above exceeds many states experience requirements.
There are no real college courses that can emulate in the field boundary experience that makes a surveyor qualified to be a professional surveyor.
What I would recommend is joint acceptance of states and colleges of a national online clearinghouse school that includes several PLSS and several Colonial States boundary surveying courses. Any college must accept up to 6 of these credits as a part of their degree requirements if they do not have similar courses. These credits can be in addition to their required minimum and hence satisfy general education requirements. Any state must accept 6 credits as equivalent to one years experience, but actual experience can never be less than 2 years. I suggest some major universities conduct the courses. Say you attend an East Coast college and in addition you get 6 PLSS credits or vice versa.
Minimum requirement to apply for said courses, An AS or BS with 24 surveying credits, a PLS or a BS CE, PE with 12 surveying credits (who may need to acquire 12 credits).
Should CFEDS count as college credits and how many?
Paul in PA
Bachelors Plus 30 For PLS? I Disagree
Not sure where this thread is going, but before it devolves further into mine is longer than yours, or ”I have x college credits vs your y" I still wouldn't hire a PDH with 500 college credits and expect them to do more than carry the field equipment for the first year, and then graduate to instrument man, etc etc until they had seen plenty of "the real world" of boundary surveying.
We all know there is more to boundary work than being able to reduce the Laplace transforms to properly hand calc a least squares reduction.
Hell, I know plenty of excellent boundary surveyors who know more legal principles and "art" of boundary surveying in their left fingers than lots of college grads of a four year program in surveying.
So, again, I'm getting hazy on the underlying point of the thread.
Are you suggesting states should start requiring PLS candidates be 4 yr surveying grads? Or, are you suggesting a sliding scale that will only be abused by folks "running up the numbers" by taking 30 credits of phys Ed?
Like other professions
I like #5 a lot. If done correctly, it could transform our profession.
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> 5. Peer review. As part of the practical examination phase, example surveys must be submitted for peer review, and yearly from then on.
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#1 would be ok, but with it I would want to add to the surveyor greater ability to resolve boundary disputes. With adequate education, this could happen. I rarely find myself wanting to emulate the French, but the article on how they do land surveys (in one of the magazines) made me want to develop that system here.
> 1. 4+ year degree. To qualify for a Land Surveyor endorsement on a license one would need to complete thier masters heavily weighted in state specific boundary law. Same would go for Engineeering Surveyor or Geodetic endorsements.
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