Advice to youngsters?

[TIB]

I started surveying in 1979 after my father hired me as a rear chainman (remember those?) apprentice for his Civil Engineering Company. I quickly fell in love with surveying and started to learn and soak up all the knowledge I could. After all these years, nothing has changed, I still love surveying both as a job and a Profession, and I still strive to keep learning all I can.
My question is this: how many of you out there, (especially the fathers) would advise your sons or daughters, or other youngsters, to pursue a Surveying career in 2012?
You could certainly explain that Surveying is a fun, interesting, rewarding. challenging, and noble profession. Plus you get to work outdoors. Great!
But would you recommend it as a wise career choice in the 2012 (and beyond) economy? I wouldn't. Sad, but true.
There are just not enough jobs in surveying now. I wouldn't want my kid to have to live at home for the next ?? years because no, or very few, surveying jobs are available nowadays. It's depressing.
What advice would you give? Be honest.
TIB

[Lee Hixson]

I still love surveying, but, looking to the future I would personally advise a son or daughter to also consider the burgeoning field of GIS mapping. Not so much the field aspect, but all the bells and whistles that go along with using ESRI products. It's very similar to survey mapping, just broader. And the daunting responsibility for maintaining precision and accuracy in surveying is replaced by the art of crafting interesting, intelligent, useful mapping products with far more variety in what you get to work on.

To me it's an expansion of surveying skills. They're both great.

[JoeC]

I would advice my child to enter into the surveying profession but I would also recommend they become dual licensed.

Unfortunately for us, engineers are still the profession in high demand and dual licenses' are even in higher demand.

So, until the land surveyor's authority to practice changes and some semi-engineering functions are added to our profession - it is what it is.

Land Surveyors are a breed of their own.

We need to stand tall and proud of our profession and encourage our youth that surveying is a viable and profitable profession or it will die and go back to the responsibility of engineers.

It's our choice....

[land butcher]

"I tell him I am a piano player in a brothel" In your dreams.

I would bring old plans home for my kids to crayon on. I think my son was 3-4yo when he brought in a 24x36 plan On the backside was a building, parking, drainage arrows etc all done in crayon. I took it to work, large firm, and 3 senior engineers offered him a job.
At ~10yo I took him out one day and he was turning T2 angles on a aerial control project. The survey mgr walked away shaking his head.
But I never pushed him into the work. After HS and 1 year at college he did various jobs, mostly auto related then finally took a full time survey job. He and the sun do not get along so he went back to school and earned a Civil engineering degree with honors in 2000.
After 3 years unemployed he is finally back to work in engrg and studying for the LS.
He loves the work, but like the rest of us, wishes it was more dependable.

[land butcher]

Random thoughts

I like it because it's mostly outside work and in different locations. Lots of variety. When I begin to recognize vehicles on the way to or from work I been going to one place too long.

It's challenging, making a early AM decision on how to attack a topo or bndry or stake curb with 15 trades in the way, and having to make adjustments to that strategy along the way and keeping in a budget set by some office guy that thinks every job is flat and clear.

You definitely have to build a cushion to cover food costs in down times. But very few can survive a 4 year depression that continues today with no end in sight.

And just about the time rates get profitable another recession hits and drives the rates down again. It's not a job for the faint of heart.

It has it's pluses, surveying various ranches before they are turned into subdivisions, telling a CHP that the property along PCH between Laguna and CDM still belongs to the Irvine Co and we will drive wherever we want. :) Following a bobcat along a dirt road in SJC or wishing you had a deer tag. Burying trucks to the frame in mud 3 miles from the nearest paved road, or putting a 4WD in gear in mud so slick you have to get out and push it to turn it around. Heading to a job with a blue eyed 1/2 American indian and a chinaman and getting pulled over by INS.

Stumbled across a few naked women, but still looking for the bag of money, pass on finding a dead body.

I need a job. LOL

[TIB]

Dave W. : You are correct. Vice & crime are a lot more fun and pay a whole lot more. The problem is jail. Doing vice put me there once. I didn't like it, not even a little bit. So now I try to avoid vice, and the slammer.
Dave R. : You are correct also. I love surveying and surveying has been good to me. At least until 2009 or so. Since 2009 surveying has not been good to me at all. I am looking for a new, different career/ job. The problem is after 30+ years of nothing but surveying, my skill set in other non-surveying related areas is pretty limited, meaning none.
Well wait a minute! I like to eat. I'll bet I could flip burgers or roll burritos with the best of them. I hope it pays well.
TIB

[land butcher]

Well wait a minute! I like to eat. I'll bet I could flip burgers or roll burritos with the best of them. I hope it pays well.
TIB

Maybe but if you are educated enough to survey you can't work at a burger joint. Min wage in San Fran just topped $10/hr.+ health ins. But the City of SF hires subs from outside SF that can pay less so they offer their services for less.

[LS_8750]

Most of us are taking a real beating right now, land surveyors, civil engineers, and those duel licensed. It can make one ponder why, while we incur so much study and so much liability, we even bother. I had a western regional manager call our office into a meeting once, I was fresh out of engineering school in 1996, and remind us all that "we engineers don't do what we do for the money". Thoreau also said, “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it…â€￾ Thanks but I'm raising a family Henry.

Thoreau and my former boss pegged us exactly right. We do this work because it flows in our blood.

I would advise my kids to get a quality university degree first and foremost; however, at this time I would advise not to get a degree in land surveying.

I have a problem with the land surveying curriculums I see (sorry FSU and Nevada). It is common knowledge that these curriculums are strong on measurement and technology and short on boundary law. But they are also short on educating students on what it is that we survey. We survey land. I believe surveyors should have an understanding of basic earth morphology, geology, hydrology, botany and even zoology to get a sense of how specialists in these fields view the world. In my experience for example, I have noticed that the delineation between riparian, littoral and wetland areas, with their usual buffer zones, and otherwise potentially developable lands has become increasingly contentious and litigious. This I believe is due to newer legislation and corresponding court decisions.

The PLS, instead of getting further pigeonholed purely into the realm of boundary, should be equipped to have intelligent conversation with these other disciplines.

In my line of work I use my understanding of surface water hydrology and hydraulics, and even basic geology, integrally with my PLS credential. When I read about the laws of evidence and the role of the expert in court I see more than purely possession and boundary related evidence, I see the value of other forms of evidence that may be valuable in determining the ultimate issue of a case.

With that said I would suggest to the young ones that a degree in earth sciences or engineering coupled with the field experience of land surveying and continued education in cross disciplinary fields would lead to a fulfilling career path that allows for enjoyment of the sanctity that is the land surveying profession.

Land Surveying, the study of spatial relationships, was integral to the Enlightenment sciences. Look at Jefferson, Meriweather Lewis, Thoreau.

Oh, and then get a law degree.

Cheers.

[RAM]

Further Random thoughts,

Told the CalTrans ROW agent to check his records, I didnot need a permit cause his highway was on private land with no row or easements,

Sitting on the mountain hoping the bear would go back the way he came.

Packing my chainman to the truck to drive 5 miles of 4WD track to meet the ambulance after the 4 ft rattlesnake bite and wrapped itself around his leg.

Forensic Topo in Jan at 15 degrees cause the guy pushed his wife off the cliff.

Fishing High Sierra Lakes after the trailhead topos were done.

GPS surveys for Cell Towers located in places few people will ever see.

And a followship a group of wonderful co workers,

I would do it all over.

[Scott Tikalsky]

Russ;

Amen to the last two!

Judging by the way the last 12 months have gone, I do not do this for the big money. As someone has said, find something you love to do and figure a way to make a living at it.

I am an eternal optimist. I believe this profession will continue for a long time. It will change... it has to change to survive, but it will remain. I would recommend it to anyone who would build a passion for the core principles of what constitutes what we do. I would recommend education and to embrace continuing education as part of the career.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

[DerekHouston]

As a LSIT, I'll have to go for a dual license right just to get noticed. There are absolutely no opportunities open right now that are being offered. I get scattered messages about the surveying economy improving between 6-12 months. It really sucks to study for some odd number of years only to be still looking for work. It's really tough right now. I'd recommend dual licensing as well.

[E_Page]

There are those who have foresight (no pun intended) as to professional services which are or will be in demand and are best offered by a person with professional level survey knowledge, or can only be provided by the professional surveyor. Couple that with good business sense and a drive and desire to succeed, and surveying is just as good as most other businesses to be in.

But since most of us work in the aspects that, well, most of us work in, there is a lot of competition in those aspects of practice when the economy hits the real estate and development sectors. Many of these areas are those where the surveyors who don't value their own knowledge and abilities work and thereby project to their clients and other professions that there is little real value in surveying services. It's tough to compete in that arena when the quality may not become apparent until several years later.

I won't steer my kids toward surveying or any other particular profession. Nor would I necessarily steer them away from surveying. I'll encourage them when it appears that they are working toward something they can succeed in and find satisfaction in. And I'll advise them to look in a different direction if I see them considering a direction which will eventually offer neither success nor satisfaction.

I have experience to tell them of the rewards and the pitfalls in surveying. If any of them begin thinking of making a career of it, I'll inform them of what I've learned and let them choose for themselves. Right now, it appears they are heading for vetrinarian, freelance writer, and race car driver. None have shown an interest in what dad does for a living as of yet.