Following the post below revealing the end is near….
I would have to say that what is really coming home to bite hard now is the fact that the US states decided to not go down the TERTIARY education path.
Now new fields associated with surveying have emerged as a result of the electronic technological expansion and the digital age, with university graduates flooding into the new emerging employment fields. Why because they have the education.
How many surveying firms are at the cutting edge of technology? Not many. How many of those firms are at the cutting edge in more than one specialist field of surveying? Very few is my guess.
I have scratched my head for years wondering why every one holding out as a surveyor needs to be a licensed surveyor to practise measurement gathering and setting out. The broad brush LS dog tag has let down the profession and that is evident from way DU. Why what would he know or codswallop you may scream. Well for me the evidence is in the posts where surveyors admit they have no formal training or any understanding or knowledge of potential consequences that happens from pushing a button. Why because for many the LS the only learning path was old school. Unfortunately today the old school is behind the eight ball. Yes I am an old school, but plus graduate who has kept up in my specialised field of boundary surveying.
What is evidently happening is that all the fields of surveying are being plundered with academically qualified persons from emerging fields of academia that are associated with computerisation. GIS of course one area.
How many LS are suitably qualified or financially in the position to be able to pursue for example the new government areas of contracts opening up in GIS?
So it brings me to the conclusion that the LS qualification is really a master of nothing and a negative impediment with out a tertiary degree if you wish to be involved in any other surveying than cadastral.
In OZ the LS is the dog tag for boundary surveying only, as the recipient in the opinion of the surveyors board has achieved, an acceptable standard of education and experience to uphold and maintain the integrity of the cadastre.
Here no other field of surveying require licensing. In the other fields of surveying registration is achieved in a particular field when in the opinion of the surveyors board the recipient has achieved acceptable standard of education and experience to competently practise.
Perhaps it is time for US surveyors to regroup and consolidate behind boundary surveying where the art and unique science can only be achieved from education and much practical application. Stamp authority with your seals and fight that battle. Seek to be the professional boundary surveyor who is the rightful custodian of boundaries . Seek to insure that all plans of land division are registered and not lost in a long forgotten draw. Perhaps it was the presiding minders who have had their agendas for not moving forward.
I guess I am saying why persist in painting mediocre landscape panoramas that any one can do with a modern camera and instead use the delicate brush to focus on individual portraits, as no two faces are the same?
RADU
RADU
Your broad brush strokes are much too broad.
Myself, I am a few years younger than you, have a modicum of a college education, am a capable boundary surveyor in 3 different systems, am a quite capable construction surveyor with basic training in optical alignment and high accuracy control surveying. There are many who have more skills than I do.
Face it old friend. We are NOT and never will be Australia nor any other country. We will listen to you, but we will always chart our own course. It is in our blood and in our heritage. We bow to no one. You or someone else may win a battle or even a war, but we will never be defeated. There will always be some of us somewhere to carry on or start over if need be.
SJ
:coffee:
I would argue a capable person can easily exceed in knowledge and technical skills the college graduate without the degree or expense through self study. In other words, college is a poor and expensive way to acquire knowledge. The brick and morter college is quickly becoming outdated. A traditional college is probably a good option for those who lack basic educational skills (need remedial classes) and lack discipline, though the campus college life can completely destract those individuals from aquiring an education though they may get a piece of valuable paper.
Now there's something you don't hear every day......
"codswallop you may scream"
The difference between American surveying and other 'english speaking country' surveyors is the difference between two different but seemingly similar legal systems.
Cooley's caution explains the point:
All history teaches us that different peoples, or even the same people in different stages of advancement, are not to be governed by the like modes and forms; and while we all concede this as a general rule, we are too apt, perhaps, when we compare with our own the system which prevails in the country from which we have mainly derived our ideas of government and law, to forget that we erected our structure on foundation ideas of democracy which never pervaded in the governing classes in Great Britian, and that the aristocratic sentiment, which is there controlling, is here, in a political point of view, insignificant.
Remember, In the U.S., the citizen is the source of sovereign authority, not the government.
Richard Schaut
THERE IS CONFUSION
No doubt there is confusion about what surveyors do. This confusion is amplified by folks who practice the profession as a vocation.
Too funny.
Not trying to offend anyone or pick on anyone, just expressing a view that the other readers of the post apparently did not see.
RADU, you make observations as if you are outside the box looking in and telling what you see. Then you get a response confirming what you are seeing! But the first respondant does not admit to being in the box and in fact sticks out his chest claiming to be able to whip you and anyone else. He does place himself in the box though by admitting to being capable in boundaries, quite capable in construction and having basic training in optical alignment & control surveying.
The second respondant also does not admit to being in the box. His approach is to consider it easy to be out of the box without having the “traditional college” education. Of course we know him well and know that he has the college degree and know he is happy working in the box without worrying what goes on outside the box (which may be what you are talking about).
The fourth respondant also does not admit to being in the box. In fact this person did not even know you were looking in a box and thought you were talking about American surveyors vs surveyors all around the world (or at least Austrailia).
So I guess I have to go back and read your post again….
OK. I read it again. The other respondants must have taken RADU’s suggestion that the “US surveyors regroup and consolidate” to mean that it was us against them. The whole post was really about the box that we are in. Let’s face it. Surveyors should have been the ones to run the GIS systems as they came on line. But we were not prepared for that so others had to step in and pick up the slack we left for them. Surveyors should have been the ones to prepare surfaces for machine control. But we were not prepared for that so others are stepping in to pick up the slack we left for them. Many non-surveyors are doing scanning because the surveyors did not claim it when it came out and many still are not able to work around point clouds. Some of the photogrammetrists have their “dog tag”, but many don’t and most surveyors certainly don’t know much about photogrammetry. Then there are all the GPS stakeout artists and data collectors that take some of “our work” away. So maybe it is time to consider making our box smaller (Bounday & Cadastral) and let others do those tasks if they can get them.
Is this an item worth discussing?
Luke
> Is this an item worth discussing?
>
> Luke
Yes,
The best GIS systems, most efficiently ran, are the ones managed by surveyors. The best construction data managers are surveyors. I've seen less than adequate systems, developed by others and it wasn't pretty. The clients involved were less than happy.
I think it's time the surveying community stepped up and reined theses outliers in. After all, we're all sworn to protect the public, right? Is it time to license individuals in different divisions of surveyors, like in other professions?
I think so, do you?
Douglas Casement, PLS
Mr Schaut you missed my point completely.
I am simply saying that there are many fields of surveying. This board is representative , just as in OZ of the majority field which in boundary and engineering surveying specialists.
I am not talking about the principals of law we use for definition surveys.
To others, I am simply saying that all other fields of surveying are being usurped by graduates who have entered through new doors, because the traditional licensed surveyor has not kept up with the developments in for example the fields of point cloud scanning, geodetic and GIS.
As I stated I am a boundary specialist as that was the field of endeavorer that I chose after my broad tertiary surveying education. So why should I automatically be able to hold out as competent as say for example, a geodetic surveyor as I understand you can if you are a LS in the states. Even though your experience may be extremely limited or carry out boundary surveying, albeit you are principally a experienced engineering surveyor.
Today, due to the electronic boom all fields of surveying have become highly specialized, so it is impossible to be master of all.
All I am saying is preserve the LS tag for worthy boundary specialists and reward those in other fields of surveying with their competency accreditation so the public know who can survey boundaries and who can carry out in that field of endeavor.
No different from the doctor of medicine studying a part of the body in detail and then practicing their specializing and the doctor then moving with their knowledge in the direction where research takes them.
RADU
Mr Schaut you missed my point completely.
I would think that I could go to a brain surgeon and ask for a prostrate exam and expect a competent diagnosis. I would not think a proctologist could give a proper diagnosis of a problem with my head.
I think it should work the same way for surveyors.
Cheers,
Dugger
Mr Schaut you missed my point completely.
Terrible example Radar. Actually a proctologist is PROBABLY the perfect doctor for many Land Surveyors when it comes to brain diagnosis stuff.
Mr Schaut says:
The concept of land surveyor here in the US does not lend itself to a focus on accurate measurement, although accurate measurements are certainly a key part of the surveyor's professional work product.
Our responsibility is to provide a means to detect and correct errors in our land records system.
For the last 30+ yrs, I have found that surveyors here in the US have consistently failed to meet our responsibility.
Remember, the title ins. industry has defined three types of title defect caused by errors in the record, but there is no one in our legal system that is capable of determining when an error exists nor what correction is necessary except the land surveyor.
Once we, as a profession, realize our responsibility within the framework of private land ownership here in the US, we will eliminate the confusion.
We must provide the initial boundary location 'on the ground' because that rarely coincides with the wishful thinking as reflected in the record.
Therefore, no improvements can be positioned within the boundaries of an existing parcel of land until the legal, physical, boundary position is confirmed.
If surveyors here in the US were doing their job, no proposed construction or proposed platting would be contemplated until after a surveyor had confirmed the accuracy of the record or provided any needed correction action.
The 'box' we have framed around ourselves is a fictional concept.
GIS has begun by mapping the record and, finding that 'the record' is unreliable, they have switched to scanning from offsite without having any capacity of matching the physical reality with the record.
If we had been providing the professional service required by our system of land ownership, there would be no conflicting 'survey services'.
Richard Schaut
Mr Schaut you missed my point completely.
> Terrible example Radar. Actually a proctologist is PROBABLY the perfect doctor for many Land Surveyors when it comes to brain diagnosis stuff.
Maybe you're right, maybe I should have my head examined, maybe we should all have our head examined:
Cheers,
Radar
