Mike Falk, post: 334358, member: 442 wrote: Research shows that show that Millennials generally want three things:
- The want to make a difference in the world more than they want job security.
- They love technology and know how to use it.
- They want a mentor to help with professional development.
What is your company doing to adapt to the times?
I can't disagree with what you're saying here, Mike.
Thinking out loud, though, I'm starting to wonder if our profession isn't more suited less to the young college graduates and more to the very people who the licensing boards are excluding due to the degree requirements. And that may be the biggest reason that our numbers our dwindling.
I recently reviewed a hydro job. One of the firms doing settlement checks just bought GPS for the first time to do the work. This isn't the type of job to be learning GPS on.
I reviewed a boundary firm 10 years ago that didn't own a metal detector.
How many folks don't know how proper deployment of a data collector can expedite construction AND boundary surveys?
How can technology excite folks to take up land surveying? I am not talking high end measurement geeks. I am talking about simple business practices that not only make a firm more profitable, but, also attracts younger people.
How much less brush can you hack if you understand how technology can help your day to day boundary work?
How many other surveying firms are pushing that technology that excites the Millenials?
I remember when I started surveying 10 years ago there were always people looking for a survey job. Now its very rare to come across a qualified person to fill a position.
I started surveying in 2003, and when the economy tanked I went to school and got my 2 year degree while working part time. I went on and got my PLS and now I moved to South Carolina. Well here in SC I am not eligible to take the SC PLS due to education requirements. I have started on my 4-year degree but its a slow go working 50+ hours a week. I do not agree with the requirements that require you to have the 4 year degree. I think with North Carolina laws are fair, Less education= more experience. Just my 2 cents.
I have been hearing that there will be a shortage of Licensed Surveyors since I graduated College in 1980. Are there less licensed Surveyors now than then? Yes, but with today's technology (GPS, Total Stations, Robots, CAD) it takes much less time to do the same amount of work.
Unless your sending out a Licensed Surveyor with every field crew (A topic for another thread) most small firms only have one Licensed Surveyor on staff. The limiting factor in how much work a firm can do is not how many Licensed Surveyors they have, but how many qualified Survey Technicians (field and office) they have.
Right now the NJSPLS website has 10 Jobs posted. 9 do not require a license, the tenth would prefer an LSIT or PLS.
The shortage is in the Technician positions and the only way to attract and keep qualified people is to offer good pay and benefits in an positive and challenging work environment. We are no longer competing for employees from the surveying firm down the street but rather with every other industry out there that needs educated, self motivated and technologically savoy employees.
Dan Dunn, post: 334532, member: 911 wrote: We are no longer competing for employees from the surveying firm down the street but rather with every other industry out there that needs educated, self motivated and technologically savoy employees.
This happened to me, I graduated and did some road construction surveying for 3 years for a tiny 4 man company to get some experience. Then I wanted to move back down south and started job hunting. I really wanted to join an actual surveying company but the job offers where half what a field engineer at a construction company was offering.
So I took the construction company job and the technology they were using was just awful and I was not very happy, so I worked with one of the seniors in the company and wrote up some reports on getting all the field engineers on robotics and 3D Drafting for calculations. Since they were already looking into BIM modeling for coordination this was just a natural upgrade for them and soon all construction companies will be this way.
Now we all use TS15 robots and they are hiring from schools instead of turning bad carpenters into surveyors. Absolutely love my job now. With the way building information modeling is advancing no construction company will have poorly outfitted survey technology very soon and I would never recommend a new survey tech to join a surveying company if they can get into a construction company instead.
My only complaint now would be that I have to figure out everything myself. The mentoring is non-existent (mainly because most cites have 1 or 2 surveyors), but from what I have heard it is that bad in every industry.
JPH, post: 334233, member: 6636 wrote: It's fairly simple as I see it.
Young college kids want money and something more glamourous and more professional seeming than hacking through brush and lifting man holes all of the time.
Experienced workers want a path to obtaining their license. Degree requirements have basically cancelled some good workers out of the profession.
What I think many are missing is the transition in all professions that has taken place in the past fifty years. Medicine, law engineering and others have followed the assembly line pattern. That is one licensed professional supervising the maximum number of technically trained assistants. In most of the United States the days of the local private practice doctor ended years ago. Now we have local clinics controlled by larger medical associations. The engineering firms are following the same path and many small firms have been acquired by much larger organizations.
I have seen these firms view surveying as a "loss leader" to acquire lucrative engineering contracts. Always pressure on the head of the surveying department to break even. However, the engineers set the project budget and estimate surveying at far below cost of operations. The "survey brokers" are another side of the problem if they skirt licensing laws and look for the low bidder without regard to professional qualifications.
As the number of licensed surveyors continues to drop the surviving firms will need to follow the medical clinic model. One or two licensed owners supervising trained technical (two year surveying degree) people that gather and summarize the data. The professionals review the summary with the field crew chief and head of legal research. Ask probing questions and review in the field if necessary. Make decisions they can stand behind in court if needed. This is the model I have been advocating since starting teaching in the early 1990s.
A few years later when I was being interviewed for the full time position my answer to "Why do you want to teach?" was to quote what was then the slogan of the West Virginia professional society "Every man is a debtor to his profession." This is a paraphrase of Francis Bacon, ÛÏI hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.Û I spent many years making a living from surveying and a few paying forward in hopes of improving the profession.
LRDay, post: 334370, member: 571 wrote: Land surveying should drift more towards a legal field and away from engineering/construction.
:good:
I think the SIT should cover the elements common to most surveying tasks. Then there should be separate license endorsements for Boundary, Construction (if license required in your state), hydrology, etc. Boundary should be taught out of the law schools, not engineering schools.
Dan Dunn, post: 334532, member: 911 wrote: I have been hearing that there will be a shortage of Licensed Surveyors since I graduated College in 1980. Are there less licensed Surveyors now than then? Yes, but with today's technology (GPS, Total Stations, Robots, CAD) it takes much less time to do the same amount of work.
Unless your sending out a Licensed Surveyor with every field crew (A topic for another thread) most small firms only have one Licensed Surveyor on staff. The limiting factor in how much work a firm can do is not how many Licensed Surveyors they have, but how many qualified Survey Technicians (field and office) they have.
Right now the NJSPLS website has 10 Jobs posted. 9 do not require a license, the tenth would prefer an LSIT or PLS.
The shortage is in the Technician positions and the only way to attract and keep qualified people is to offer good pay and benefits in an positive and challenging work environment. We are no longer competing for employees from the surveying firm down the street but rather with every other industry out there that needs educated, self motivated and technologically savoy employees.
Dan,
The model for a 'typical' firm varies dramatically across the country. We see very few firms with one or two license holders. Half of our Survey department is licensed. All of us are grey or balding. The volume of work done using newer equipment means more LS review time, not less.
Locally we have an issue finding techs and LS types. Ads sit in the paper for months with no qualified applicants. I hear the same from many in the region. Those techs that we don't have now translate into Professionals we don't have later.
For me personally this isn't all bad. In 10 years I'll be making bank. I do have concerns for the Profession. The market will eventually take care of things, but we won't like the way that looks if we don't take part in the process.
thebionicman, post: 334600, member: 8136 wrote: Those techs that we don't have now translate into Professionals we don't have later.
Unfortunately, like it or not, in our modern society the route to a career in a profession is no longer through the technician position.
Paralegals do not work for a few years and become Lawyers, Bookkeepers don't become Accountants, Physicians Assistants don't become Doctors, Engineering Technicians don't become Engineers. Not with out going back to school and studying for those professions.
That is not to say that a career in a technical position can't be rewarding and profitable, it is just not the path to a license in any modern profession.
We can no longer hire some kid out of high-school and tell him or her that if they work for poor wages for the next 6 to 10 years maybe they can get a license. The carrot and stick doesn't work anymore.
I live and work in a state that has required a Bachelors Degree since the early 90's. Some people said that would be the end of surveying, well its 25 years later and we are still here. Are there fewer Licensed Surveyors in NJ, Yep. Is anyone having trouble finding a surveyor to survey their property, nope.
What has to change is how we recruit and retain those who will fill the technician positions in our profession.
By technicians I don't mean those who stay at that level. When you graduate College there is still work to be done on the path to Licensure. A degree doesn't equal professional standing. You work as a technician until you gain enough experience to sit for the exams.
I'm generally a proponent of the four-year degree, but only as the most expedient way to usher well-qualified individuals into the profession. This is in contrast to the ideal method: Make the test hard as hell and the experience requirements more like a residency than an apprenticeship. In medical residency, med school graduates have to "match" into a residency where they receive close guidance, training, and experience under experienced physicians who have agreed to take them on.
As far as the testing goes, I think we should follow the example of, say, actuaries. There isn't really an "actuary" college degree, but if you haven't taken advanced math and statistics at the university level, there is no way you'll pass the exams.
I think the real problem is that the test and the experience requirements are way too easy. If the test were harder, the college education would usually happen out of necessity, and the door would remain open for those few autodidactic savants who somehow were able to learn it on their own.
There are 802 active WV licensed surveyors.
Of those 483 currently live in WV.
203 deceased
45 delinquent
636 expired
102 inactive
201 retired
10 revoked
1 surveyor intern
But it looks like since 2001 (year I was licensed) there have been 205 license issued. That's about 15 per year.
Of those 73 currently live in WV.
WV started requiring a 2 year degree around 2004 I believe.
John Giles, post: 334650, member: 57 wrote: There are 802 active WV licensed surveyors.
Of those 483 currently live in WV.
203 deceased
45 delinquent
636 expired
102 inactive
201 retired
10 revoked
1 surveyor intern
But it looks like since 2001 (year I was licensed) there have been 205 license issued. That's about 15 per year.
Of those 73 currently live in WV.
WV started requiring a 2 year degree around 2004 I believe.
Just curious, do you know how many of those 15 per year are first licenses? One thing that makes our numbers look less bleak is the number of multi-state folks..
No. I got the information of the board website.
There are still a couple active license like 45. That would be from the early 70's. I don't know how much they actually do but they are still active.
I'm guessing the 73 that are from WV are most likely first license.
Many of the others were from surrounding states or Colorado, Alabama, etc. So I doubt they were first timers.
I just realized an important bit of information I forgot to mention.
The requirement for a 2 year degree did start in 2004 but if you were already on course to get a license by the old rules then you could still get them up until 2012. So it is possible a bunch of people rushed to get licensed before 2012 came under the old mentor/experience type rules.
I just realized an important bit of information I forgot to mention.
The requirement for a 2 year degree did start in 2004 but if you were already on course to get a license by the old rules then you could still get them up until 2012. So it is possible a bunch of people rushed to get licensed before 2012 came under the old mentor/experience type rules.
McCracker, post: 334225, member: 9299 wrote: As a young surveyor with a passion for surveying, the 4 year degree program in Florida is holding me back. As I do not disagree with having some sort of formal education is surveying I do disagree with requiring a college degree. Not everyone finds their passion for surveying right out of high school and for those that find it later, going back to school, while working can be very difficult. I recognize that there are a great many of folks out there have done just that, worked and gone to school, balanced a family and whatever else on top of it but that doesn't necessarily mean that every other person should. I would very much support an license program that required a great working knowledge of field procedures, office management, and the concepts behind both backed by a certain degree of formal education. I do not support, however, the requirement that each person that becomes licensed to hold a 4 year degree in "Geomatics." There are aspects of surveying that a college grad will never understand, and it is unfair to those that understand what is "in between the lines" be completely deferred from licensure on a degree basis. Certificate programs are available but are seen as the same as a CST level program, i.e. the individual knows the concepts and can apply them but doesn't have a degree. A standard should definitely be followed when it comes to who is a professional and who is not, but should it be a degree that defines that standard and if it is not, what is?
Come to Colorado. You don't have to have a college degree to become a Surveyor, an Engineer, nor a Lawyer. But they're in the process of changing that for Surveyors.
It always comes back to the education requirement. Seems like a lot of people are down on it, but look at other industries. You basically need a 4 year degree to do anything now because everyone has one. It makes it tough to get hired without one.
Also, the older fellows are forgetting that they started surveying before a lot of the newer technologies were around. There was time to slowly acclimate to the new contraptions as they came and evolved into what we have now. If you're starting now you have to be able to use, understand, and troubleshoot everything in the current arsenal including steel tape, an automatic level, a robot, a VRS network rover, Civil 3D or some other software. To me it just seems like a monumental task to learn all of it on the job in a reasonable amount of time.
I'm not saying all of this is taught in a four year degree program or that everything is taught in a practical way either. That is why experience is also a prerequisite for licensure. What it does provide is the education and mindset that comes from earning the degree. It goes beyond the piece of paper itself and instills in the graduates the ability to more easily learn new and complicated things, strategic problem solving and the confidence to be able to take on seemingly insurmountable problems. (At least that's what it did for me).
Not that I wasn't b*tching about it at the time because I had to change jobs to find a place that would pay for college, work all day, go to school all night, come home and change diapers at 2 am and get up and do it all again, but if you REALLY want it you can do it.
Dan Patterson, post: 334707, member: 1179 wrote: It always comes back to the education requirement. Seems like a lot of people are down on it, but look at other industries. You basically need a 4 year degree to do anything now because everyone has one. It makes it tough to get hired without one.
There are many jobs that can certainly justify having a 4 year degree. But, I was somewhat surprised when I started noticing the BA degree being required for secretarial positions. Job descriptions that included answering phones and filing papers in filing cabinet. And knowing the alphabet. Does one Really need a 4 year degree for things that should have been taught in high school or before?
When I see job requirements like that (for jobs that "shouldn't" require a college education), I get to wondering if it is being used as a weeding tool. Never mind that many jobs of that level typically don't pay much above $10/ hour or so. How can someone justify paying tens of thousands of dollars (for an education) only to be offered a job that would not cover living expenses, let alone paying back loans?
Dan Patterson, post: 334707, member: 1179 wrote: It always comes back to the education requirement. Seems like a lot of people are down on it, but look at other industries. You basically need a 4 year degree to do anything now because everyone has one.
You basically need a 4 year degree to do anything because you can graduate from high school today only learning what's on the standardized assessment exams. Well, that and gender identity indoctrination.
