So 2 weeks ago I shadowed a crew chief for a day, decided I liked it. Last week I emailed out my resume to a few places. Have had no response. This was right around the time that the coronavirus news was ramping up. Couldn??t have planned for that.
Prior, everyone was saying that jobs would be easy to find. I am guessing that this virus is affecting companies being willing to hire.
I am wanting to work up from the bottom. I don??t have time or money to spend in school for a year or 2. Does anyone know of any free massive online open courses(MOOCs) that I could take or books or videos so that when things turn around again I have a head start on getting in to surveying?
This is a very unfortunate setback.
Free? No. But there are plenty of youtubes that one could spend time with. Then there are textbooks like Elementary Surveying?ÿthat you could get into. An older edition could be found used for a few bucks. At this point, you don't need the latest.
A lot of community colleges have some form of courses. There are some on-line. But that's not free.?ÿ?ÿ
emailing out resumes are apt to get ignored even at the best of times. Make some personal calls. Ask for the survey manager. Tell your story. 9 out of 10 will blow you off. Keep calling until you find that 1.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
Search this forum for book recommendations.?ÿ I always pitch Wolf and Ghilani's Elementary Surveying, and it doesn't have to be the very latest edition (prior editions much cheaper).?ÿ There is also a lot of stuff on line.
I would think a lot of folks are just holding in place right now. I wouldn't expect anyone to be hiring right now - too much uncertainty.?ÿ
N10,000, E7,000, Z100.00
PLS - IL, MO, AR, KS, MN, KY
Go to National Geodetic Survey website. Training and education. There is many pre recorded classes. Things like Datum Dave Doyle and rtk guidance by Bill ?ÿH. This will be learning by the firehose method. Some of this will be above a beginners head but you can watch and listen to these over and over again. Don??t let not understanding everything stop your learning. This is more related to geodetic work and not the Land Surveying Boundary work. But you can get some terminology and a beginners understanding of Datums and State plane coordinate systems down some. Also many of the manufacturers of software and hardware used have training videos out on there equipment. This will start to get you prepared as well. This site has a lot of knowledge to gain as well. This is just a start. Look at articles written by experts on many of the Surveying Magazines online. This is not college credit material but it is something. Good luck. ?ÿ
My suggestion is to hang tight.?ÿ I have been a part of this industry and employed survey help for a good long time.?ÿ What happens sometimes in economic downturns is that young hands with families are forced to move on to better pastures.?ÿ When things pick back up (and they always do) there is usually only a percentage of hands that return.
One thing you have going for you is your inexperience and your interest.?ÿ I don't know about other surveyors, but I always preferred to keep a couple of "clean slated" employees around.?ÿ Sometimes training someone as to how I liked things done was easier than butting heads with an experienced hand that wanted to do things the way he learned...at some other firm.
Keep beating the bushes.?ÿ
Check out learn CST.Com. And the NSPS.
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LearnCST.com is free but the books recommended by the National Society of Professional Surveyors are not.
?ÿAlso there are plenty of youtube videos on Surveying.
Henry.?ÿ
I second @olemanriver on the NGS website. Tons of useful information.
Offhand I know of no MOOCs for surveying-specific courses, but there are some fundamental courses that will help you immensely if you are planning on eventually going after your PLS (or if you want to be a highly skilled technician).
If you can find them and have the time, I highly recommend college-level courses in trigonometry (if your HS courses were not satisfactory), statistics, physics (specifically optics), calculus I (controversial but vast majority of 4-year surveying programs require it), and Computer-Aided-Drafting/CAD (may not be survey-oriented but will get your feet wet). A basic programming course can help as well - I took MATLAB as part of my degree program.
There may be some GIS courses out there. It's geospatial and will broaden your knowledge at the very least.
It sounds like a lot, and not all of it is related to fieldwork, but if we're going to be housebound for the foreseeable future, and you are serious about the career move, it's a great opportunity to get some learning in.
Official courses aside, read all you can on total station operation and procedures, the GNSS framework, operation and measurement methods. A good field technician has a solid grasp of what's going on under the hood of their equipment.
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Hang in there - most of us are still working and although things have slowed down a bit, it will pick up again eventually.
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Friend moved to a different company. He misses the party chiefs that HE trained and that HE knows what they will do.
Now he has some crusty old party chiefs that were surveying before he cared and cannot be told a thing.
Does your state have community colleges? In California, any resident can enroll. Then you can access their library resources. Libraries could have access to training systems like Lynda. Librarians in general are very resourceful.?ÿ
Also, I know you prefer free but there may be some relatively inexpensive (again through community or junior college) online classes you can take. In California, each credit is about $50. So a 3-credit course costs you $150. The books often are just as expensive. But you'll have to wait for fall semester at this point, so that's more a long term solution.
Also google:
Basic AutoCAD (you'll want to learn Civil 3D eventually, but AutoCAD is a good start)
As a student, you can download AutoCAD for free, and then follow along with tutorials.
https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/autocad
Someone mentioned GIS. You can pay $100 for a one-year subscription to ESRI's ArcGIS, which includes excellent training modules. May be easy to get lost though, and if you're trying to save money, maybe skip this one for now.?ÿ
A good youtube video:?ÿGPS RTK Surveying Workshop
Scott Peterson, surveying professor at Fresno State, has lots of very good videos.?ÿ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJi31myB7ez0KD8yHR3nbcA
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Newer party chiefs trained by some other sources can not change their spots either.
Had a pipeliner to refuse to keep recognizable notes and would only write down his setup doubles without any setup point numbers or any other info to know where he was setup.
Most of the others insisted upon using their own equipment and refused to turn over a raw data file.
They all did a relatively accurate job of measuring and just simply did not understand those reasons and ways the BOR insists upon the importance of keeping accurate records of gathering the information in the field.