I've been tasked with coming up with a few reasonable shortcomings of the surveying profession and was hoping for some feedback from the community to weigh in with my own opinions.
Thanks in advance...
Ticks, poison ivy, snakes, bears, poison oak, briars, unsettling humans, gators, widowmakers waiting for you to walk below them.......
Or were you thinking more along the lines of needing to leave your home State in order to receive the educational training required to become licensed in your home State?
Public perception.
Take that for what it's worth.
Many thoughts ... pasting for you here a link to the summary report of a very recent surveyor's forum:
http://www.xyht.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Summary-Report-for-Surveying-Forum.pdf
June July August
I'm probably going to draw some small arms fire from the perimeter of the LZ, but here goes:
The biggest "Administative" shortcoming I see in the surveying profession around here is a total lack of discipline practice. A surveyor can attain licensure and immediately jump into any number of survey disciplines without even being questioned. Some surveys require a good amount of study and experience to execute correctly.
As opposed to our engineer cousins:
I have a PE colleague that is in his seventies. He pretty much knows what he's doing. A few years back he prepared plans for an AP runway extension. This involved mainly grade, drain and surface of the runway to FAA specs.
Halfway through the project it was discovered that the existing lighting (extraneous to his contract) wasn't going to be able to handle the added footage. The electrical contractor on the project suggested a couple of transformer upgrades, as was common in such a case. The client decided to run with the suggestion. The FAA required a PE stamp on the upgrade. My PE buddy did some homework and found it was a viable and common approach to the problem.
Since he wasn't licensed in "electrical" engineering he was fined by the State Board for practicing outside of his disciplines.
If they ever apply those kind of rules to surveying, there is going to be some changes, for sure.
I found a shortcoming. The "To the POB" call came short by 0.025'!
Getting invents of sanitary manholes is the only part of the job I do not like.
1. Public perception, a misunderstanding of what it takes to do our job correctly.
2. A lot of surveyors undervalue their services. I am past the point of needing practice. I am in business to make a profit.
These are two off of the top of my head.
Or were you thinking more along the lines of needing to leave your home State in order to receive the educational training required to become licensed in your home State?[/quote wrote:
I am curious what state you are referring to?
Worked in DC near the Post Office Headquarters where I had to run a bench loop. It's a level, not a camera! I had a group of trannies dancing in front of me.
Jimmy Cleveland, post: 367395, member: 91 wrote: 1. Public perception, a misunderstanding of what it takes to do our job correctly.
2. A lot of surveyors undervalue their services. I am past the point of needing practice. I am in business to make a profit.
These are two off of the top of my head.
You can leave off the word correctly and it would apply for a big percentage.
Lack of sufficient or necessary education to perform the service needed. The seminar model doesn't work for basic foundational education.
TEDD and Hub Northing.
I agree with "Public Perception". Years ago I was introduced to the concept that if someone has a low opinion of me, whether their perception is right or not, it's up to me to change their perception of me.
paden cash, post: 367390, member: 20 wrote: I'm probably going to draw some small arms fire from the perimeter of the LZ, but here goes:
The biggest "Administative" shortcoming I see in the surveying profession around here is a total lack of discipline practice. A surveyor can attain licensure and immediately jump into any number of survey disciplines without even being questioned. Some surveys require a good amount of study and experience to execute correctly.
As opposed to our engineer cousins:
I have a PE colleague that is in his seventies. He pretty much knows what he's doing. A few years back he prepared plans for an AP runway extension. This involved mainly grade, drain and surface of the runway to FAA specs.
Halfway through the project it was discovered that the existing lighting (extraneous to his contract) wasn't going to be able to handle the added footage. The electrical contractor on the project suggested a couple of transformer upgrades, as was common in such a case. The client decided to run with the suggestion. The FAA required a PE stamp on the upgrade. My PE buddy did some homework and found it was a viable and common approach to the problem.
Since he wasn't licensed in "electrical" engineering he was fined by the State Board for practicing outside of his disciplines.
If they ever apply those kind of rules to surveying, there is going to be some changes, for sure.
For me this falls under the too many rules category. In NJ there is no discipline specific PE license. It is the responsibility of the licensee to protect the public. Therefore, it is expected that someone who is a professional will not practice in areas where they aren't an expert. If you can't Be responsible enough to admit there are things you don't know how to do, then you shouldn't be licensed at all in my opinion.
For decades there was a single category known as Professional Engineer. Then a collection of dimwits decided to create a multiple choice circumstance where you had to pick one area in which to be tested. Thus, if you were competent in six different areas of practice, you needed to pass six different tests and pay six licensure fees. It's always about the money and who gets it away from you.
When I took and passed the PE examination I was allowed to select problems from all of the potential disciplines. I tackled problems from four different disciplines and apparently handled them appropriately. I am very weak in chemistry yet tackled a problem from the chemical engineering selection for which I was very well prepared from a couple of graduate level mechanical engineering courses I had taken a few years earlier. One problem that I picked from the civil engineering selection required maths skills commonly found in a high school freshman with an A in algebra. One from the mechanical engineering selection was nearly identical to similar problems from one of my agricultural engineering courses.
Eighty percent of getting a degree in engineering is applicable to all of the various disciplines. It's that remaining twenty percent that give you a label. It is ridiculous to focus the professional application to such an extent. For a true professional it all boils down to only accepting work in your areas of competency, regardless of some label that says you are a such and such type of engineer................or surveyor.
A person could be quite competent at construction staking for a particular application but semi-worthless at another application. It's how the licensee operates the business that is important, not some label indicating "construction surveyor".