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Student Land Surveyors UNITE!  This hub is for surveying in schools and student surveyor support on Land Surveyors United. Join this group to share resources and tips for students of land surveying.  In this Hub for Young Surveyors you can ask questions to both your fellow student surveyors as well as Educators inside the Land Surveyors United Community.  Start a Discussion and Introduce yourself. 

Tell us what you are learning and keep an on-going log of everything you learned!

Things You Can Do in Student Surveyors Hub:

  • Share and Compare Class Notes
  • Record and Stream Classroom Sessions
  • Discuss What Other Students are Learning around the world
  • Share Photos from Surveying Class
  • Collaborate on Projects
  • The Sky is the Limit!

Professors will soon have the ability to host and administer their entire classroom inside a hub of their own.  Stay tuned!

 

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Replies

  • Aaron Wilson May 4, 2011 at 8:33am
    East Tennessee State University
  • Noor UDDIN November 21, 2010 at 4:53pm
    I am first year student in surveying from wolverhapmton
  • Government Professional
    Charles W Browning Jr November 19, 2010 at 12:41am
    Vancleave, Mississippi
  • Reason Mlambo November 13, 2010 at 3:31am
    I am a 3rd year student in a 5-year program at Midlands State University in Gweru, Zimbabwe, just about to go on attachment.
  • Gary Breisch November 10, 2010 at 12:28am
    I am a surveyor from Oklahoma. You can see from my profile that I have been surveying awhile (since 1965 and got my license in 1981).

    Due to a very unfortunate turn of events lately I am having to almost start all over when I thought I could slow down. Now if I want to live on, I will have to jump through hoops that will be challenging at my age due to those in OK who have no respect for fellow surveyors and will do anything to kill us off.

    So to survive I will have to be a student again and I do not know if I can do that and support my household with full time adult children and their grand children living with us due to the very tough economy.

    I have many years of experiences to help other surveyors out but I am puzzled at our system in OK and challenged to forgive those who are not "LandSurveyorsUnited" spirited and are making the profession a cut throat world in OK.

    So "Decide to be Happy" knowing that, in the long run, right will win over evil. Love, forgiveness, and patience are the three attributes we must have to go beyond the challenges that life brings us.
    • GEO Ambassador
      Skip Farrow > Gary Breisch November 10, 2010 at 12:45pm
      Gary, Your comment make me think about one the real purposes of LSU. Where are the voices from your state leaders? Where are the voices from from the national leaders? Is there anyone out there trying to keep the surveying profession alive. LSU was created to help support those that needed help with equipment that they already owned. That person may have been the owner of the company that had 7 crews, and today himself and two others are the company. Since they didn't need to purchase any new equipment, it was hard for them to get support. They needed to just learn how to use what they were still making payments on, and possibly complacent, because they had never ran it before. They were running the company and making sure the employees got paid and the payments on the equipment was made. LSU was to give them as place where they could reach out to others and get their needs meet.
      But my real question is, and one that I hoped LSU would evolve into, is what kinds of work is everyone doing to stay alive. What kind of projects should the guys in South Carolina be looking for, because surveyors across the states are living on these kind of projects.
      Where is the work today? Is it in ROADS? Is it in CONSTRUCTION,what kind of construction?Is it moving towards GIS applications because that's where the government has created mandates. So locating assets for the local county in each state will provide 35% of your work load. The local and national level offices across the states doesn't have enough intelligence to research their market and feed this kind of information back into the system? If someone does have this information do they have a source to deliver it? Thats why Justin was pushing so hard to get the states to join and once we had enough members from each state LSU could ask the hard questions.
      Wouldn't it be something if the word got out that surveying is a part time job any more, with a degree and all that continued education. The dollar volume of surveying work reported vs. the number of PLS we have, equals only half of the work needed to keep them all busy/ At least if it was real, only a part time job, then you could either go up on your prices and figure out what you can do with the rest of your time. Even if it was to contract with a construction company. Does this strike a nerve? do you agree? Is there a source to finding this out? any ideas?
      And I do agree, you have to "Decide to be Happy" and with LOVE, FORGIVENESS, and PATIENCE possibly the world will result back to the basic principles of humanity.
      Skip
      Skip
    • Timothy N. Ross > Skip Farrow November 11, 2010 at 10:07am
      Hi guys, if my profile is not descriptive enough, I have been surveying full-time for 20 years. I advanced in ranks from rodman, instrument-man, crew chief/office tech, now project manager. When I was "coming up" I wanted to learn. A couple of my first crew chiefs were "job security" thinkers, they would not teach, they only told me what to do. For many years I hated surveying because I wasn't learning anything, until I went to work for a small company. After two years of cutting brush and holding a rod, I went to the office manager of the small company and said "I want to learn". He immediately started my path of learning how to survey. That was 18 years ago, and we are still very good friends. The biggest problem I have had is "learning disability". Some people "scoff" at someone who says I have ADD, they call it laziness. After being tested, I now take medication that truly helps. I have taken the Fundamentals several times, finally passed in December 2009, while medicated. I recently took the Principles, still waiting on results. The firm I work for now has a "nitch", we have been fortunate and blessed to get several federal contracts that keep us afloat. We acquired contracts with Forest Service, Corps of Engineers, Utility companies, things like that. We have two guys from Georgia, (I live in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky tri-state area). Those guys had been laid off for over a year, and finally traveled up to West Virginia for work. I know times will get better, but for now I feel very fortunate we have the work we do. One problem I have is some of our field personnel have no desire to learn or advance, they want more pay, but they don't want to work for it. Some of the office techs, mostly licensed and LSIT's, are trying to put together a field procedures to curb some of our issues that seem to haunt us from job to job. It is a family owned and operated business, so sometimes things are difficult on a daily basis (long story). I guess what I am saying is how do you motivate people to do a good job, learn and apply, do diligent work? The other issue I have is: I do not have a four year degree, I applies to West Virginia and Kentucky before the laws were changed to require education. I have no problem with states trying to truly "professionalize" the profession, the problem I have is the accessibility of the education. I am 38 years old, married, two children (8yrs old, 10 years old). I live just outside the Huntington, West Virginia area with a university, literally straight across the river from my office. So literally that we can watch their big screen from our "back porch". They do not have a Surveying program, and only last year, they started an Engineering program. The other options are 4 hours away. I can not move, or quit working and go to school full-time. A co-worker and I have found on-line courses, but I will be "bouncing" from one accredited place to another in order to get a degree. I am currently filling out applications to start my higher education, and it is an uneasy feeling. I am not the smartest person in the world, and some things do not come easily to my brain, so I have an anxious feeling looming in my mind. I guess I am just wanting to "vent" a little that I did not do somehting straight out of High School, but I had no clue about surveying then, how many high schoolers do? Basically, it is very scary to me starting a new course in my life, trying to juggle distance learning and a family, but I am going to try. Well, I will close this venting novel with this, I love to learn, but I can not make others want to learn, and I am nervous about the higher education learning. As for the jobs, we have been fortunate with some contracts, that if we did not have, we would not be a company of 20 employees, but a company of maybe 5. Best of luck and wishes to all.
    • Gary Breisch > Skip Farrow November 10, 2010 at 5:13pm
      I will have to get back with you on this. Looks like you need a survey on surveyors, LOL.
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