Advice for someone getting into land survey as a career.

First things first. In order to get the best advice, and their will be plenty of advice offered over the next two or three days, we need to know more about you and your goals.

Where specifically do you intend to be living once you jump ship?
Do you already have any experience with a survey office or a field crew?
Are you an outdoorsman 24-7 type or are you just as comfortable sitting behind a desk?
Would you prefer land boundary work or construction layout work?
Are you a numbers person and a skilled communicator?
Do you have known allergies or susceptibility to certain plants and such that you will encounter regularly working out in the field?
Will your planned family situation welcome overnight travel frequently?

Those of us who will attempt to guide you can relate our own stories, but, those may or may not be of any help without the answers to several of the questions above.

Maybe go work for a Surveyor, for a few days, and then come back and post what you think.

One piece of advice I got was to work for at least 3 or more surveyors, before getting your license. This gives you more perspective as you move forward.

N

You can get a job in surveying without a license or a certificate (if you can get on somewhere). That might be a good starting point just to see if the line of work suits you. You can get great advice here as to all of your questions. And you might answer the above questions as well. Getting an education is good, but you need to be able to afford it. Some states require a degree, and some don't.

I would start by figuring out where you want to live. Do a search for the board of professional land surveyors for that state. Things are changing and requirements are getting tougher almost everywhere. If this turns out to be what you want to do that can be good news. Competition thins out when things get harder.
Keep reading and keep listening... good luck.

I am currently a resident of Massachusetts with no prior experience. The current licensing requirements are 2 years of school and 4 years of work experience, or the opposite. I can afford to go to school for 2 years right now if I want to. I am very comfortable working outside and have no allergies. I would prefer land boundary work but either would be good experience. I have average math skills but I am good at visualizing and measuring distance. I am currently on a ship in Southeast Asia for the next two months so I can't really go work for someone else at the moment, but I plan on getting some face time in with local surveyors when I am discharged. Overnight trips will not be a problem, 90 day hitches out of the country are what I'm trying to get away from though 🙂

Lost,

My advice is do not yet worry about getting a license - if you hire on with a survey crew now, your time on the crew is needed for any future license anyway. What you will soon find out is if you like surveying or not. If you like the experience of working outside, following instructions, and learning from the first day on, you have passed the first test and will likely be hooked for life like the rest of us.

Many very productive surveyors are not licensed. There are many paths to choose later on, some of them require a license, some do not. Formal education will probably be necessary at some point - but again, any hard working person who got through high school math, English and history can learn surveying in time.

Good luck!

ww co pls

Do you have any good sea tales for us ?

Good comments so far

Probably the best advice so far is to hire on with a survey office somewhere to get some real world exposure prior to starting on a specific course of post-secondary education. It won't be the best pay in the world, but it will help to steer you towards which areas of the survey world may pay you the best all around rewards in the long run.

As you intend to be in the New England area you should investigate the similarities and differences between a half dozen or more States within easy travel distance of the middle of Massachusetts. By that I mean not only their requirements for experience and education in order to obtain a license but how the standards of practice vary from State to State. There can be very distinct differences between adjoining States. In my case, I am in Kansas but very close to both Missouri and Oklahoma. Missouri was surveyed initially in the 1820's or thereabout while Kansas was much later in the 1850's to 1890's and Oklahoma didn't even become a State until 1907. This means there were different sets of instructions for those original surveyors to follow as practices improved and better equipment became available. Therefore, being proficient in one State does not necessarily mean you will quickly become proficient in another. The modern equipment is great and is far better than what was available when I started, but the analysis side of knowing how to do the job correctly is very dependent on the history of the immediate area being surveyed.

Hi lost.

I'm a New England surveyor. In New Hampshire, specifically.

Licensure is one thing, but it's only one part of the picture. Most people I know took the long road: 4-6 + years working for one (or three) different surveying offices. In fact, working for three different surveyors makes the licensure process easier, since the app requires three licensed surveyors references.

But seriously, the advice folks have given here is good and spot on... Surveying is not for everyone, it is both physically demanding and academically challenging! you should try it out first.

Here in the colonial states, we have a much different "point of beginning" for land boundaries, ours being from the king of England. The folks surveying in the western expansion states have at times rather strict and set guidelines and procedures to follow. Working in mass you'll find interesting.

First step for you should be to contact MALCE ( mass association of land surveyors and civil engineers). They might have a job board. Find a small to medium sized surveying and engineering firm. You'll get lots of experience in a small shop; from sharpening machetes, oiling tools, cleaning the truck, humping 60 pound packs, driving stakes, doing town start ups for abutters info, initial deed pulls from the registry, primary deed sketching, instrument manning, rod manning, and data collector dumping, and maybe the beginning of a CAD computer plotting. Then in February you'll be in the office scanning plans, adjusting instruments, and hopefully they will have you sitting in front of a CAD computer workstation learning how to draft septic designs.

In this first year or two you would do real good to get into a 2year survey program, with an option to get into a four year civil (or preferably the four year Survey program in Maine.). That 2 year survey program ( associates degree) will capstone with an exam called the LSIT land surveyor in training. The PLS or LLS exam will generally require you to have successfully passed that preliminary exam.

Good luck. I've enjoyed my career so far. In fact, I'm looking forward to the next 40 years, since I'll never be able to "retire". Because as a small surveyor, I have no retirement other than a pittance IRA, have no health insurance, so my wife takes care of that, and vacation time is quite limited. There are no wealthy surveyors.

This is very helpful, thank you. I have been a laborer in some profession or another for the past ten years. I enjoy hard work, but I would also like to be challenged mentally and that is part of the draw to survey work for me. I am also an avid outdoorsman and love camping, hiking, all that good stuff. Being outdoors is a pleasure. I make very good wages and benefits at my current job but I'm not happy. Being away constantly is not going to work in the long run for the life I want to live. I have been looking at applying to the surveyors program they have at UNH and I will look into applying at some local companies when I get home in November.

Your post reminded me of a fellow I worked with back in the late 80's. He was a ships first mate with the same problem as you.

Village Jammers bluegrass band is his real passion, look for the tallest guy in the group. He is in your area, so if you get the chance check out the music and tell Curt I said hey.

Be careful about the "two years of school" the MA Board of Registration has specific subjects they insist be incorporated into a degree to be a Land Surveyor in The Commonwealth. There was a certificate program at The Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston that would give you the needed subjects, however I do not know the status of the certificate program as they were having difficulty getting enough students. The program was run at night and on weekends to allow working surveyors to attend.

There was a rumor that Bristol Community College has a similar certificate program however if they do I don't know if it is accepted by the board of registration or not.

Charter Oak State College in CT, near Hartford, does have a certificate in land surveying, check it out.

http://www.charteroak.edu/prospective/programs/land-surveying-certificate.cfm

Good luck with your search.

T.W.

A post above said you will not get rich from surveying. Well you may not get rich but you can get close to it. Once you are licensed and start your own practice. It depends on where you practice. Look at my avatar that is not a center console. There are places in the northeast where you can practice and own something other than a center console.

Thanks for the encouragement, Floyd!

2 Year Colleges In New England

University of Maine, Orono

Paul Smiths College, New York

University of New Hampshire

In that order. Any of them can hook you up for summer/part time work.

Not too far away;

New York, Alfred State and SUNY, Mohawk Valley? status unknown?

Pennsylvania, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Penn College of Technology (Williamsport).

While you are on the ship, learn all you can about GPS and other navigation techniques and charts. Plotting a course is like following a deed.

Paul in PA

Getting into land survey as a career...

I'm not sure I've ever met a surveyor who actually intended to be a surveyor. Most people get a job cutting brush or shagging the pole and eventually wake up knee deep in the business.

My advice would be to get a job cutting brush or shagging pole for a surveyor somewhere. The pay won't be great because your green but don't let that stop you. You have to come in on the first floor and work your way up to being a surveyor even though "they" won't let us on the upper floors on account of our boots being muddy and our penchant for curse words.

Also, practice your blank stare off into a distant point that may or may not be within the .06' tolerance of an ALTA survey. I like to call it a "daymare:" Like a nightmare but you're not sleeping and it really is happening or could happen if you don't go check.

Don't.

Why.

2 Year Colleges In New England

Thanks for this.