aliquot, post: 436600, member: 2486 wrote: am not sure where you got the idea that I think someone with a degree is automatically better than someone without one. I never said anything like that.
Huh, must have been some other "Aliquot" who wrote this:
aliquot, post: 436314, member: 2486 wrote: It's not arbitrary. Someone who has a 4 year degree and passed the test has proved they know more than someone who has only passed the test.
You said it. It was a full of crap statement if ever there was one. You did not say they proved they knew the subject matter and the nondegreed individual had not proven it. No! You said they "proved they know more,than someone who has only passed the test." So, tell me: do you also know more than Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or Srinivasa Ramanujan? None of them have college degrees. But I bet most of us would agree that they know more about their fields than plenty of people with degrees in those fields.
As for U of Northern Virginia. It literally has people with a 4 yr degree that is not worth the paper it is printed on. It was a degree mill and those "graduates" didn't prove they knew more than "uneducated" people in the fields that they held their degrees in.
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Some of our brothers from the great white north might have some more insight but my understanding is that the Canadian path the an LS requires a series of tests. Each test covering different aspects of surveying. It is a much more rigorous procedure but answers most of the questions on this thread. I can only imagine the complaints if a state went this route.
Jawja, post: 436664, member: 12766 wrote: You did not say they proved they knew the subject matter and the nondegreed individual had not proven it. No! You said they "proved they know more,than someone who has only passed the test."
Jawja, Maybe he worded it poorly, but I think the emphasis is on "proved" which would indicate that they have proved more than a non-degreed individual has proved. I would have taken it the way you did at first. My apologies to aliquot, I don't know him or what he thinks, so I possibly shouldn't be speaking on his behalf.
Brian McEachern, post: 436608, member: 9299 wrote: Discussions like this seem to always seem to turn into a pissing match of who is the most intelligent. Among fellow surveyors no less.
If this is what you've gotten out of this discussion, you missed the point entirely. If clearcut is who I think he is, he's no less intelligent than I. There are several who have contributed to this thread, including Gene, who I believe are more, and perhaps far more intelligent than I am. That doesn't mean that I or others shouldn't be able to spot and counter what we believe to be flawed logic.
It's got nothing to do with measuring or showing off intelligence. Which is the point I've made several times in this thread.
Brian McEachern, post: 436608, member: 9299 wrote: Surveyors are their own worst enemy ... [paragraph of resentment of 4-yr degree]... it doesn't take a 4 year degree to learn that and it doesn't take a 4 year degree to understand boundary law.
In spite of the apparent resentment toward the idea of a 4-yr degree and any who support the idea, your underlying premise is correct. There is a lot of misunderstanding about what a 4-yr degree is intended to accomplish, mostly among those who didn't get one, but often among those who did or are in the process. The degree doesn't make one any smarter. It does not indicate that a licensee with a degree is more intelligent that one without a degree. Anyone who has attained their LS is also plenty smart enough to have graduated with a BS in Surveying (or geomatics) if they had chosen or had the opportunity to do so. As to boundary law, unfortunately within many accredited degree programs, the education includes as much misinformation as it does proper understanding, so often that's a wash. Accreditation is geared toward engineering, so many of the BS programs do well with the more engineering related aspects and fail in the areas where math & science take a lesser role.
Repeating myself, but you missed it the first time: the degree is designed to provide a broad exposure to many areas of practice in a relatively short period of time and to provide the education to develop the basic skills which would need to be built on for full proficiency in those areas. Many seem to have the impression that it's to turn out graduates that are learned all around experts. Those who have not sought the degree and think this imagine they've scored a victory for the non-degreed masses every time they are able to show that a recent college grad is not an expert at some area of practice. In this, they are doing exactly the thing you rail against graduates for doing to the "uneducated". Those with a BS degree or in the process of getting one who believe themselves superior and expert right out of school don't need someone else to belittle them, they'll make asses of themselves without your help.
Brian McEachern, post: 436608, member: 9299 wrote: Surveyors, especially "PLS, RLS, LLS, PSM, etc." whatever you or or your state requires to title and this may not go well with the choir here, and I do think of the folks here as professionals with more experience and knowledge, if only perhaps due to age, seem to always look down on others.
If your field guy has a legitimate complaint, it's typically looked down on because he or she "doesn't grasp the gravity of the equation" or is just bitchin' to bitch. In the same sense, the one's that have put up with the 4 year requirement and gave an arm and a leg to get it, peer at others as lazy individuals and if you really want it, it can be done. I have heard it time and time again, "I did it with 3 kids, a wife, and it was snowing. (It was miserable and I hated myself and I barely get paid enough most days to pay off my student debt, but that's besides the point)"
Land surveyors are not rocket scientists. If we were to survey the moon, we would, but NASA would get us there, and once there we would pin cushion the hell out of it.
I've seen one comment in this thread that suggested that those with a degree have proven themselves smarter or better qualified than those without, but he came back and clarified that comment in a later post. I've seen another comment that said since the state made it a requirement, it's now just a matter of meeting the requirement or not. I didn't read a value statement on the individual as to their worth or abilities in that, just the factual acknowledgement of state requirements.
The decision to attain a degree or forego it is a choice. For some, it may not be a viable choice, but it is a choice nonetheless. Whether or not the investment in time and $ will be worth it depends upon the career prospects in the locale and area of practice a person chooses to limit themselves to. Again, another choice. A few years ago, I had a great career opportunity offered to me in the Los Angeles area. I'm certain that my career and finances would have been much better off had I taken it, but living in the LA megalopolis smog basin was not a choice I was willing to make.
I went to school with more than one married guy with kids while training for their 2nd or 3rd career in life (and it snowed for several months of the year). For them, their wives were supportive, able to go with or remain connected on weekends, and as a family, they had planned for it, so it was a viable option. Lacking the supportive spouse and ability to plan for the time and decreased income while in school, it would not have been a viable option unless they were willing to dump their family, but most wouldn't consider that viable either. Sometimes it might be a matter of motivation, sometimes not. I don't recall any in this thread, or even recently on this forum suggesting that those who have not chosen to get a degree made the choice out of laziness or lack of intelligence.
There are many careers which are more lucrative and/or have more prestige than surveying. Many of those careers require various amounts of formal education and some don't. Most of us could have chosen any of several such careers but chose not to for a few or many reasons which may have included entry requirements we were not willing to meet.
Whether or not a degree is required in our respective states is a matter of law. If we don't like the requirements as they are, we can work to change them. In the shorter term, we can simply choose to meet them or not.
eapls2708, post: 436668, member: 589 wrote: Repeating myself, but you missed it the first time: the degree is designed to provide a broad exposure to many areas of practice in a relatively short period of time and to provide the education to develop the basic skills which would need to be built on for full proficiency in those areas. Many seem to have the impression that it's to turn out graduates that are learned all around experts.
??A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society??It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.?
John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University
eapls2708, post: 436668, member: 589 wrote: Most of us could have chosen any of several such careers but chose not to for a few or many reasons which may have included entry requirements we were not willing to meet.
I looked into going to East Tennessee for a surveying degree when I started surveying at age 25. All I needed was the core requirements in the major, but that would have meant my wife walking away from a job that payed (in 2017 dollars) $82K...so that wasn't going to happen. I probably wouldn't have stayed in surveying if Maryland had a four year degree requirement at the time. I had been dipping my toes into the MA programs in English at Catholic University at the time, so if there had been a four year degree requirement today I'd probably be a tweed coat wearing, pipe smoking guy quoting Newman and Seneca on the internet. Wait a minute...... 😉
I don't doubt Aliquot is correct, someone with a degree certainly knows more than I do; maybe they have a more comprehensive background. Self-training tends to be more focused whereas a College program is broad.
I don't take it as a personal affront to me.
As to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, good BSers if you ask me.
John Putnam, post: 436556, member: 1188 wrote: From what I saw in the CA review class I took, a lot of people were taking the exam that really were not ready. I was shocked at how many people had set for the exam repeatedly. Someone there told me it partly because CALTRANS paid more for a PLS no matter what their job description was. As I said before the cut score should not be changed to increase the pass ratio, the candidates just need to be better prepared.
Grading the exam (in the days prior to CBT) was a real eye opener. That experience made it painfully clear that there were a great many, an anecdotal estimate of perhaps 30%, who were not even close to prepared and really shouldn't have been able to get in the room to begin with. The part of the grading process that really drove me up a wall is that although everyone in the room agreed that there was a fairly high percentage of people that really shouldn't have been able to get into the room, all the scores went into the averages to determine the cut score. In other words, if an examinee were to only show up, put their examinee number on the answer booklet, and made the feeblest attempt to answer at least one question, their score of zero went into the averages used to weight the points of the questions in that problem. IMO, that improperly waters down the measure of minimal competence, especially when the cut score is then lowered to something around 50%.
CA has some of the lowest experience and education standards in the nation. Ric and I agree that what makes that problematic is that many of the licensees signing for applicants rate them as qualified on the experience forms while knowing that they are nowhere near qualified. They don't want to be the bad guy by refusing to be a reference or by giving a poor reference, so they sign off with the idea of letting the exam weed them out. Then the State can be the bad guy. There several places at which the system could be improved, but this is one of the biggest failings and it's not something the board has the ability to directly fix.
CA has, or had a reputation as having one of the most difficult exams, but I believe a lot of that is lore due to traditionally low pass rates. That lore was in part self perpetuating because those prone to test anxiety would go in even more anxious than they should have been, and accordingly performed more poorly than they otherwise would have.
I went in as someone having just moved to the state and not having been exposed to much of the difficulty myth. On exam morning, I was one of the 1st to arrive, hanging around out front. Others soon showed up. A few feet away, there was a "kid" who looked barely old enough to have gained the minimum required experience (6 years) with a small backpack of reference materials listening to an "exam veteran" with a rolling cart containin15 or 20 books, snacks, a padded seat cushion, and a thermos. "Oh, this is your first time? Don't worry about it, nobody passes on their first time. I ought to know, this is lucky number 9 for me."
The "kid" was looking pretty pale and darn near shaking with fear. I walked out of earshot. I'm sure they were both back the next year. The "exam veteran" probably attended several more opportunities to take the exam. I've known several who I'm sure would have passed on their first attempt but for letting the exam's reputation psych them out, and then go on to pass on their 2nd attempt.
There's a grain of truth to your Caltrans statement, but only a grain. There's plenty of incompetence to go around when it comes to vastly unprepared people taking the exam. Caltrans has a surveyor series of positions, and most CA state agencies use the same series or a very similar one. A license is required to get promoted beyond a certain point. The job description does change in terms of what the person might be expected to do even if their actual day to day duties don't change right away.
Dave Karoly, post: 436673, member: 94 wrote: I don't doubt Aliquot is correct, someone with a degree certainly knows more than I do; maybe they have a more comprehensive background. Self-training tends to be more focused whereas a College program is broad.
I don't take it as a personal affront to me.
As to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, good BSers if you ask me.
Disagreeing slightly but not arguing. A person with a survey degree will know a little more about a lot of different areas of practice than you do in not having that degree. But I'm quite certain that you know a great deal more than most BS graduates in your chosen area of practice through self sought education. I'm certain that in that regard, you have quite a bit more knowledge than most surveyors with a similar amount of experience, with or without a degree.
Dave Karoly, post: 436673, member: 94 wrote: I don't doubt Aliquot is correct, someone with a degree certainly knows more than I do
Maybe, maybe not....
The first guy I met who had a four year degree in surveying needed to wear a helmet when tying his shoes to keep from injuring himself. A guy in the town I used to work in (not a surveyor, more a top level management gig) has an MBA from Wharton but still tweets stupid crap at 2:00 AM
eapls2708, post: 436683, member: 589 wrote: Disagreeing slightly but not arguing. A person with a survey degree will know a little more about a lot of different areas of practice than you do in not having that degree. But I'm quite certain that you know a great deal more than most BS graduates in your chosen area of practice through self sought education. I'm certain that in that regard, you have quite a bit more knowledge than most surveyors with a similar amount of experience, with or without a degree.
How do you measure experience is this example? Are you comparing the 4 years of College to 4 year of working in the field? Do you think Surveyors with a degree just quit learning when they Graduate and have no interest in self education?
eapls2708, post: 436677, member: 589 wrote: Grading the exam (in the days prior to CBT) was a real eye opener. That experience made it painfully clear that there were a great many, an anecdotal estimate of perhaps 30%, who were not even close to prepared and really shouldn't have been able to get in the room to begin with. The part of the grading process that really drove me up a wall is that although everyone in the room agreed that there was a fairly high percentage of people that really shouldn't have been able to get into the room, all the scores went into the averages to determine the cut score. In other words, if an examinee were to only show up, put their examinee number on the answer booklet, and made the feeblest attempt to answer at least one question, their score of zero went into the averages used to weight the points of the questions in that problem. IMO, that improperly waters down the measure of minimal competence, especially when the cut score is then lowered to something around 50%.
I thought that too originally Evan, but when seeking clarification on that later, I found that if someone received zero because they didn't answer the questions, that result was treated like a "no show" and not considered in the scoring criteria. Now, the ones who actually answered some questions that still resulted in receiving a zero score (1-2 each admin), their answers were considered in the scoring process but only for the questions they actually answered. I can see Evan's point on affecting the overall weight of each question, but that was the point of the standard setting process (at that time) with a combination of licensees and testing experts making those decisions. Thankfully, we have evolved way beyond this process and it is only memories now.
eapls2708, post: 436677, member: 589 wrote: CA has some of the lowest experience and education standards in the nation. Ric and I agree that what makes that problematic is that many of the licensees signing for applicants rate them as qualified on the experience forms while knowing that they are nowhere near qualified. They don't want to be the bad guy by refusing to be a reference or by giving a poor reference, so they sign off with the idea of letting the exam weed them out. Then the State can be the bad guy. There several places at which the system could be improved, but this is one of the biggest failings and it's not something the board has the ability to directly fix.
Maybe I failed to explain it properly in a previous post to this thread, but that's what I was leading to when I asked what is the professional society doing about this. The licensing board doesn't force people to submit applications. When they do decide to submit an application is based on any number of factors which is their prerogative, not the licensing board's. What I'm asking is what is the professional society, the professional community, the individual licensees in responsible charge, etc. doing to prepare these people for becoming licensed? Isn't there a responsibility there? That's what I meant when I said "growing the profession".
Regarding the "CA has some of the lowest experience and education standards in the nation" statement, Evan is correct that I have stated that several times as well as discussed this with him. However, the more I've learned about the requirements imposed across the nation, the more I've learned to appreciate CA's requirements. CA is the only state that I am aware of, that requires surveyor applicants to clearly demonstrate 12 months of responsible field training and 12 months of responsible office training. Nearly every other state shares the common requirement of a 4 year ABET degree and 4 years of experience.
eapls2708, post: 436677, member: 589 wrote: ...There's a grain of truth to your Caltrans statement, but only a grain. There's plenty of incompetence to go around when it comes to vastly unprepared people taking the exam. Caltrans has a surveyor series of positions, and most CA state agencies use the same series or a very similar one. A license is required to get promoted beyond a certain point. The job description does change in terms of what the person might be expected to do even if their actual day to day duties don't change right away.
All joking aside about Caltrans surveyors (and engineers - I joke about them ALOT), Caltrans does promote licensure, publishes a great series of surveying guidelines, and encourages training both internally and externally for their staff. It is true that some with their entire career at Caltrans have struggled with the broad-based aspects required in passing the exam(s), but that can be true for others in private practice that are unfortunately pigeon-holed into positions at firms that do not allow them to broaden their experience range.
Scott Ellis, post: 436696, member: 7154 wrote: How do you measure experience is this example? Are you comparing the 4 years of College to 4 year of working in the field? Do you think Surveyors with a degree just quit learning when they Graduate and have no interest in self education?
eapls2708, post: 436683, member: 589 wrote: Disagreeing slightly but not arguing. A person with a survey degree will know a little more about a lot of different areas of practice than you do in not having that degree. But I'm quite certain that you know a great deal more than most BS graduates in your chosen area of practice through self sought education. I'm certain that in that regard, you have quite a bit more knowledge than most surveyors with a similar amount of experience, with or without a degree.
(cool, figured out multi-quote for the first time - see I can be taught) I'm one that does not have a surveying degree. Do I believe that individuals with a 4 year degree have knowledge that I don't? Absolutely. Do I also agree that I had knowledge after 4 years of surveying experience than an individual with a 4 year degree had? Absolutely. It's just different knowledge.
James Fleming, post: 436689, member: 136 wrote: A guy in the town I used to work in (not a surveyor, more a top level management gig) has an MBA from Wharton but still tweets stupid crap at 2:00 AM
Hey I think I'm familiar with that guy.
Quite the range of opinions on this subject. I'll comment that the 4 year Land Surveying (nowadays "Geomatic") programs I'm familiar with also require non-technical courses in literacy, the humanities, ethics, etc. And any residential 4 year program, especially for a young person, is a character building experience that will serve the graduate well for the rest of their lives. I believe for those with the financial means (including scholarships), aptitude, credentials to matriculate, and desire, that a college education is a worthy endeavour beyond just a vocational training exercise. I know grads (even one PHD, gasp!) who went on to careers as bus drivers, restaurant owners and similar, and are delightful people with wide ranging and interesting lives, partly because of their degrees in English Lit. or the fine arts, etc.
That being said, college is not for everybody if all four of the reasons mentioned above are not present. I was saddened when the trend towards requiring four year degrees to sit for the exam occurred. I think it precludes some surveyors who, through an (4 to 12 years) apprenticeship and a strong self-study ethic are highly qualified to sit for the exam and would turn out to be excellent licensed land surveyors but cannot sit for the exam because of no 4 year degree. That's inequitable in our field, which has a rich history of apprenticeship and a difficult exam to achieve licensure. I may be proven wrong, but I haven't seen a large decrease in incompetent practitioners in the 4 year degree states.
Full disclosure: I obtained my B.A. degree in Chemistry (that's right a B.A., not a B.S.) while surveying for the Forest Service in the summers. Unfortunately caught the survey bug bad and after the requisite (6 year?) experience qualification, passed the (two 8 hour days) exam on the first try with flying colors back in a year (the '70's) when only 14 of us passed. Later passed on the first try in a different state. I'm old now, which probably colors my opinion(s) on mandatory 4 year survey degrees to sit for the exam.
Gene Kooper, post: 436577, member: 9850 wrote: All I can add is that the architects didn't believe that their "confessionals" would remain confidential and I agreed with their assessment. Even if the diagnostic remains confidential, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Board could not review the diagnostic should the licensee have a complaint filed against them.
I don't see a licensing exam as a measure of how competent the exam taker is. Licensing exams (at least in their current form) are intended to discriminate between those that are not competent and those that are minimally competent. I don't see them as serving a higher purpose. YMMV.
'I dont see it' and 'its not in our scope' are horrible reasons not to use the information. Thats like a lifeguard with holding his float from a guy in the river because he works at the pool.
The tools are already there. The protections already work in other related policies. States give results now and sky has not fallen. It makes no sense not to share the data..
James Fleming, post: 436672, member: 136 wrote: ??A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society??It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.?
John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University
Jim,
While at university a friend's father, who was the president of regional bank, set a couple of us down to talk about or education. His major point is that to him it really did not matter what your degree was in while reviewing applications. By completing you bachelor's degrees you showed first that you can set a goal and finish it. This may sound trivial, but the delta of people that start and graduate is significant. The second point was that what we really learned in our endeavor was how to learn.
Tom Adams, post: 436667, member: 7285 wrote: Jawja, Maybe he worded it poorly, but I think the emphasis is on "proved" which would indicate that they have proved more than a non-degreed individual has proved. I would have taken it the way you did at first. My apologies to aliquot, I don't know him or what he thinks, so I possibly shouldn't be speaking on his behalf.
In retrospect I see how it could have been interpreted both ways, but yes the emphasis was intended to be on the "proved".
Scott Ellis, post: 436696, member: 7154 wrote: How do you measure experience is this example? Are you comparing the 4 years of College to 4 year of working in the field? Do you think Surveyors with a degree just quit learning when they Graduate and have no interest in self education?
My comment you're referring to is specific to Dave in that I believe that he has done a whole lot more than most in terms of self-driven education in his chosen area of practice. If Dave weighs in on a boundary topic, it's good for all of us to pay attention to what he's added.
For the record, I have a BS degree in surveying from OIT. I have not quit learning nor lost interest in doing so.
Gene Kooper, post: 436551, member: 9850 wrote: I can see the diagnostic tool being used as a weapon against a licensee should they face a lawsuit. The exam's purpose isn't to delineate the areas that a licensee is competent to practice in; it is a determination that the licensee is minimally competent to practice in any area of land surveying. It is incumbent upon each registrant/licensee to extend their learning throughout their career, not the state licensing board or professional society. Being a simple country boy, i know the truth in the old adage that you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
thebionicman, post: 436736, member: 8136 wrote: 'I dont see it' and 'its not in our scope' are horrible reasons not to use the information. Thats like a lifeguard with holding his float from a guy in the river because he works at the pool.
The tools are already there. The protections already work in other related policies. States give results now and sky has not fallen. It makes no sense not to share the data..
Well, no problem with agreeing to disagree. I don't think my position is horrible and it should definitely be brought up should a state decide to implement your suggestion. When I was involved in the continuing professional competency rule making, among the suggestions was something tailored after medical doctors. Architects could obtain specialty certification to show continued competency; like a doctor with a board certification in thoracic surgery. I don't see that being practical for surveyors, but it was an option discussed on how best to demonstrate continued competency.
I see no problem with a professional informally following the continuing professional competency guidelines in their quest to improve and/or add expertise to their practice. Those being:
- A reflection on one's practice to date;
- Creation of a list of weaknesses and deficiencies directed towards one's future practice (e.g. wanting to expand into a new area);
- Creation of a continuing education plan to address those weaknesses or lack of expertise;
- Implementation of the continuing education plan; and
- Evaluation of whether the continuing education attained the objectives of the CE plan.
I also think it is important to recognize that the examinations are designed to segregate two groups of people, those that are minimally competent to become licensed and those that are not. I'm no pschometrician, but before it is used for a "higher" purpose there should be some analysis on whether it can discern a professional's strengths and weaknesses. If so, the examination should be given to active licensees after being blessed by a host of psychometricians. Active licensees would be required to take the test every 5 to 10 years. They would not be required to pass the exam and their scores would not be used to establish the cut off score. They would receive a confidential diagnostic that could be a substitute for creating a list of weaknesses and deficiencies in their practice. I would hope that there would be statutory guarantees that the diagnostic shall not be used in Board disciplinary actions and by an opposing party in civil litigation. Call it a means for a licensed professional to show continued competency without the threat of sanctions.
Now, I say this somewhat with my tongue in my cheek, but if the proponents of giving new licensees an exam diagnostic are correct, then it should have equal value to the old hand licensees. In all seriousness, if the object is to raise the profession then all should participate.
My comment starting with "I don't see" is aimed at whether the existing exams are capable of discerning strengths and weaknesses of a minimally competent land surveyor. I have not seen any data that supports the notion that exam diagnostics have any value other than to discriminate those that are minimally competent from those that are not. If someone has some data, I'd appreciate it being shared here. Not to dismiss others' ideas that the exam diagnostic may help and cannot hurt a new licensee, IMO that reasoning comes up short.
Gene Kooper, post: 436769, member: 9850 wrote:
[ . . . ]
- A reflection on one's practice to date;
[ . . . ]
- if the proponents of giving new licensees an exam diagnostic are correct, then it should have equal value to the old hand licensees. In all seriousness, if the object is to raise the profession then all should participate.
[ . . . ]
I have not seen any data that supports the notion that exam diagnostics have any value other than to discriminate those that are minimally competent from those that are not.
- Being retired now I guess I'm reflecting on my career as a whole. It's a pretty satisfying reflection. Those still practicing I assume are reflecting how to become better, more profitable, and staying on top of emerging technology. If they're into the 80 hour a week grind (burnt me bad but I woke up and recovered) better be looking at an alternative that will support the family and not drive them to their graves. You can get too engrossed in the profession, where it affects every waking moment of your day.
- May not be so now but when involved I got a few letters asking if I'd retake the test 5-15+- years later; apparently with no consequences and I can't remember whether it was simultaneously with the applicants or a few months prior to "fine tune" the test. Through the grapevine I heard the "psychometrician" said the PLS's scored an 85%+- pass rate, but it was BS because only the top tier PLS's volunteered, not the jacklegs (called "selection bias"). So they're already doing that (or were).
- That is exactly the test purpose. The applicants that got a 69% vs. the 71%, one passed, one failed, but the latter is now a PLS. Which one will grow into a competent surveyor? What other result can be implemented in a testing protocol with a cut score? Contrast his with the McDonald's "fry room" test, where only a score of 100% is passing. Similarly a Navy jet pilot's testing regimen is 100% correct answers before live flat-top training commences. Are you suggesting a testing regimen that guarantees 100% competency can be created for Land Surveyors? Impossible given the complexity of the profession.