> young graduates of such programs should be learning from us rather than teaching us.
A wise mentor would teach the student and learn from the student in the process. To ignore valuable knowledge or experience from a greenhorn or a seasoned veteran is ignorant. Teamwork is the key.
This bizarre adversarial relationship between the mentor and student that folks seem to crave is downright destructive to our profession.
> > young graduates of such programs should be learning from us rather than teaching us.
>
> A wise mentor would teach the student and learn from the student in the process. To ignore valuable knowledge or experience from a greenhorn or a seasoned veteran is ignorant. Teamwork is the key.
>
> This bizarre adversarial relationship between the mentor and student that folks seem to crave is downright destructive to our profession.
:good:
Years ago a young, fresh-out-of-college (engineering) student taught me enough on my hp48 to do a statistical regression with coordinates. Another young experience-only surveyor taught me how to search rocks for markings that you can never see at first glance.
I am a licensed surveyor. I don't think either of these guys got a license in land surveying. I hope they learned something from me as well.
(I also don't think some engineering students could show me regression on an hp48 and a lot of experienced, even licensed, land surveyors can't find markings on a stone.)
Sorry, I can't jump on education is bad or good debate. I do agree that the best employees learn from their survey mentor. They just won't get that far if they can't learn from others.
> So, who won the bet??
Me of course. 🙂
How much boundary law do they get in "Geomatics Engineering" ?
It seems to me (unlicensed) that any reasonably intelligent fool can learn to measure with a small amount of schooling or mentoring. There's always more to learn, but you can get up and going pretty fast.
But boundary law is the bigger challenge and what is usually shorted in a person's schooling and mentoring.
I would assume that any geomatics core would have a few classes on boundary law and it's practical application. Why would anyone think otherwise?
I propose to you the inverse relationship between knowledge, age and experience.
By the time I was six years old, I'd learned the basics of what I needed to know in order to function like tieing my shoes laces and feeding myself.
By the time I was eighteen years old, I pretty well thought I knew it all and would have challenged anyone who thought differently.
By the time I was thirty years old I began to realize I really didn't know jack and decided there was something to that whole education business after all and pursued a geomatics degree.
Almost twenty years later I've finally come to realize I still don't know jack, but everyone around me does and they all have something to teach me. I just have to be open to the possibilities.
The older I get, the more I realize everything changes and how little I really know.
If I'm lucky enough to live so long, at some point I'll get back to where I was at six. Hopefully I'll still know how to feed myself and wipe my own butt.
~Willy
Education is a good thing in Surveying , but should not be mistaking for real world Field/office education . NC Has decided a 4 year degree kid can take the test 1 year out of school , thats laughable and is confusing how they came up with that number .
I had one of the newly graduated kids come to work for me , he was a good kid but could not set up the instrument, could not solve a boundary , could not hack the weather and told me they did not tell him in school he would have to use a shovel or bush axe ? Needless to say he did not last long.
Now give me a two year degree kid and we got something to work with . Hes got the education and can use it in the field and will take the time to progress through the ranks . I have two good ones right now with two year degrees and are doing a great job.
I will never hire a green 4 year guy again , they want party chief or manager wages and they don't know the business end of the shovel..
Their web site gives a course listing that includes these courses that I would classify as having some connection to boundary surveying. I didn't determine if these are all required or just available options to fill some number of credits.
Three credit hours are on Legal Principles and two other 3 credit courses include evidence gathering and retracement among their several topics. The rest are good stuff but not training in how to resolve conflicting evidence and claims.
GME 16 Municipal Surveying (2 credits+ 1-credit lab)
Mentions land surveying along with several other topics
GME 50. Land Surveying (3 credits)
PLSS with special emphasis on California; introduction to the California Land Surveyors Act, Certified, A.L.T.A. and mortgage surveys; sectionalized land subdivision, corner restoration, resurveys, evidence, and descriptions
GME 151. Boundary Control and Legal Principles (3 credits)
Legal principles that control the boundary location of real property.
GME 152. Real Property Descriptions (3 credits)
Theory and practice of real property descriptions and recording systems; metes and bounds, United States Public Land Survey System, lot and block and other styles investigated; practical exercises and case studies.
GME 153. Boundary Survey Design (3 credits)
Design of evidence gathering, resurvey, retracement, and analysis techniques for complex United States Public Land Survey System, metes and bounds, riparian, mineral, land grant and fraudulent surveys; case studies.
GME 159. Subdivision Design (3 credits)
Prerequisites: GME 40, GME 151. Subdivision map act, local subdivision regulations, title search, zoning study. Tentative and final subdivision layout, map drafting, computerized subdivision design, and drafting; environmental impact study.
Learned to learn
I learned to learn in college. A BA in Theoretical Mathematics has very little application in the real world.
However, I can take a program, a book and a regulation and learn them all.
Could an uneducated individual do the same? Absolutely. Can I do it better? Well for the 100k education I certainly hope so.
I believe that the education is essential for the reputation of our profession. If everyone knew that it was tough to become a surveyor because of the educational requirements, then they would respect the profession as it should be respected.
While there are many qualified, competent uneducated surveyors, I want to know how many bottom-feeders are educated. If an educational requirement reduces their ranks, then the reputation of the profession would flourish.
> .......Lived and learned, from fools and from sages.....
-Steven Tyler circa 1973
[flash width=560 height=315]//www.youtube.com/v/7Wzic15m7YQ?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]
You got to lose, to know how to win......
Learned to learn
> I learned to learn in college. A BA in Theoretical Mathematics has very little application in the real world.
>
> However, I can take a program, a book and a regulation and learn them all.
>
> Could an uneducated individual do the same? Absolutely. Can I do it better? Well for the 100k education I certainly hope so.
>
> I believe that the education is essential for the reputation of our profession. If everyone knew that it was tough to become a surveyor because of the educational requirements, then they would respect the profession as it should be respected.
>
> While there are many qualified, competent uneducated surveyors, I want to know how many bottom-feeders are educated. If an educational requirement reduces their ranks, then the reputation of the profession would flourish.
:good: :good:
> We all can learn something from anybody.
>
> When we think that we can't, we have closed our minds to any more advancement and will get no further.
Have said much the same before, expressed a bit differently. I learn something from everybody, even if it is something I didn't want to learn.
One of the old guys told me, when I first started surveying; that if I could learn something from every partychief I worked with; if I could take from them, their best attribute. I would be the best partychief, ever.
I did him one better; I learned what not to do, when they made mistakes....B-)
I've seen enough crappy surveys that I know that having a license doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to train anyone. B-)
1
Wait...just so I have this right. In NC you can become a PLS with a 4-year degree and ONE year of experience? ONE?! I'm in a state that requires 4 and 4. And while the 4-year degree is nice, the experience is irreplaceable.
Hello Sir,
I came across your post and being that I am a recent graduate (May 2013) of the program, I felt inclined to reply.
First off, I want to thank you for supporting our program; I assume you have had affiliations with the Geomatics Engineering Program in the past and that is why you are on the mailing list. I also want to thank you for taking the time to read the magazine.
What I see in your post here is a tremendous amount of passion for the land surveying profession therefore I want to invite you to not only attend Fresno State’s Annual Geomatics Engineering Conference on January 24-25; I want to invite you to speak. I am positive many conference attendants would love to hear your opinions on the topic; I assure you that will be a great way to also reach out, in a productive way, to these aspiring young surveyors. My personal email is claudiabarrueta@gmail.com if you contact me there I can help arrange that.
Lastly, I want to assure you in our program you will not find “talented young button pushers.” Being that I just graduated I am very familiar with the students that are currently there. I will assure you that what you will find are many young intelligent hard working individuals who are eager to graduate and learn. Yes, many of these students were introduced to land surveying in the classroom (as was I) however, some are survey technicians who went back to school to complete a degree when the economy crashed. With that I want to also encourage you to reach out and hire a student (or two) so they have the opportunity to learn from you. I am sure that being that you have, not only many years of experience, but also passion they can learn a lot from you.
Respectfully submitted,
Claudia M. Barrueta
:good: good post.
Hey Claudia, Why don't you offer that old guy some classes so he can learn some of that newfangled technology stuff, too.....;-)
Claudia
You are very well-spoken. You made your point (a good one) and still managed to be more respectful than I probably deserve.
I apologize to you and to the many other students that I needlessly offended.
Sometimes I should not be taken too seriously. (See my other post wherein I describe "my problem.")
Thank you for your response and please continue to contribute.
Don
Weren't you once an editor of Fore Site?
