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Threats to Licensure... continued from page 31
Another hurdle is making sure that educational resources keep up with
technology. When tech changes at a fast pace, we rely on resources such as
the following to train our workforce:

• Educational institutions
• Professional exams
• Fellow surveyors and mentors
• Associations continuing education
School curricula must be updated regularly to reflect changes in technology,
and classrooms need to have access to new, expensive technology if
students are to get proper hands-on experience. Both of those factors can
be difficult to ensure.

Professional exams like the CST have the potential to be incredibly timely
and helpful, but the exams are expensive to take, and the certification is pricey to keep active. A useful exam also relies on up-to-date
test banks that reflect the work that is going on in the modern survey industry.

Finally, mentoring on the job is difficult in an era of one-man survey crews. To truly help our workforce progress and prepare for
licensure, we need to be able to train them on both the latest tech and pass down wisdom from older surveyors to younger surveyors.

Some firms are raising their prices solely for the purpose of creating 3-man-crews so that they can adequately train new green talent.
Other resources like Mentoring Mondays, Roundtable Tuesdays, and Wisdom Wednesdays seek to fill the training and mentoring void in
our profession by bringing professionals together virtually to learn about timely topics.

In the era of emerging tech, it’s also a great time to double down on collaboration and cross-pollination between industries and
professionals, such as IRWA and GIS professionals.

Threat #4: Inconsistent Education Requirements

Another perceived threat to our profession is education requirements—or lack thereof.

Currently, states vary between requiring a four-year degree, 2-year degree, experience, or
some combination of education and experience to become a licensed surveyor.

There’s no question that education is important to do our jobs well, but it is a question of
whether that education should take the shape of a formal degree or more abbreviated
professional training and certifications.

Right now, it’s unclear whether formal degree requirements help or hurt our profession.
Both states that do and do not require degrees have seen drops in the number of
surveyors getting licensed each year.
It is a notable fact that the average age that a surveyor becomes licensed is approximately
38 years old. In other words, it’s often a “later in life“ career. The big question is, how many of these potential licensees that likely do not
want to go back to school at 38 years old are we losing by requiring a degree?

One surveyor cited that he has roughly half a dozen people
at his firm with 25+ years of experience. At this point in
their life, they’re not planning to go back and obtain a
bachelor’s degree. But they may certainly be interested in
an alternate path to licensure that centers on increased
experience rather than a degree.

The final issue with degree requirements stems from the
fact that the higher education survey programs is that the
ecosystem is at risk. We have a lack of Ph.D. candidates
to serve as professors. Nevada’s Great Basin program
has been seeking a second professor in order to become
accredited for over 10 years, without success. And in
some cases, existing accredited survey programs are
getting cut due to low enrollment.
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42 The Nevada Traverse Vol.49, No.2, 2022