<p>Can anybody say what the bachelor's degree path is, to becoming a licensed professional surveyor? There are very few "land surveying" bachelors degree programs anywhere -- so few, that I know there must be some other curriculum, such as "civil engineering", that gets you there. Should it have ABET accreditation, or is there some other accrediting body? The National Society of Professional Surveyors links to very few programs. Advice will be welcomed. I have been all over our state's licensure board website, and even called them, and they are no help, either.</p>
<p>Did you look at this website? <a href=“http://www.surveyors.com/land-surveyors/land-surveying-qualifications/”>http://www.surveyors.com/land-surveyors/land-surveying-qualifications/</a></p>
<p>I have. It says “there are dozens of programs” . . . “search on the internet”. </p>
<p>State licensure requirements vary. The profession seems to be morphing toward the bachelor’s being more common. Civil engineers have always been involved, but it’s not clear that a BS in civil engineering is the answer. There are some specific surveying bachelors programs out there, and I know the usual searches (such as collegeboard.org) are not producing complete and reliable results, because state university programs that I know of (and in one case, have visited) do not appear in the results. So, clearly, something is missing.</p>
<p>Our state licensure board is no help. They require a bachelor’s, and the written rules on the website do not specify what kind of bachelor’s. Would an English degree qualify? I doubt it. But they don’t say what. My tax dollars at work.</p>
<p>If licensure is based on an exam, then it is entirely possible that the major for a BA/BS is immaterial provided the person has the combination of practical experience and coursework to prepare him/her to do well on the exam.</p>
<p>Pick up the phone. Call the state board. Ask for more details.</p>
<p>The website states: “Most land surveyors do a four-year college degree in land surveying or related subject such as geomatics or spatial science. Students who take other related majors such as engineering or mathematics may also be eligible to apply for land surveying qualifications.” The state board has to be able to tell you what you need to do. </p>
<p>You could also call some surveying firms and see what they recommend.</p>
<p>Generally, I think of a surveyor or cartographer to have a geography degree not engineering.
You will need certification in GIS, probably.
<a href=“Maps”>http://geography.about.com/od/understandmaps/a/Surveying.htm</a></p>
<p>Frankly my environmental science kid has taken GIS classes and has used and done surveying…as has my civil engineering kid. OP just make a few phone calls and see what people tell you…I’m guessing it’s the kind of thing where experience trumps the degree…in other words if you were an English major who helped survey teams in the summer during road construction season you’d have enough experience to maybe get someone to hire you. But I’d vote for civil engineering as the shortest distance between two points since I know my S3 civil engineering major had several surveying projects his freshman year. </p>
<p>Maybe something like this…
<a href=“Engineering, Engineering Technology, Interior Architecture, and Surveying”>Engineering, Engineering Technology, Interior Architecture, and Surveying;
<p>Check this out.
Colleges and Universities Offering Land Surveying Programs <a href=“http://www.guidasurveying.com/pdfs/colleges.pdf”>http://www.guidasurveying.com/pdfs/colleges.pdf</a></p>
<p>OP updates – first, thank you. Second, our state board has somebody on the phone who does not know the info, and won’t help you get it. Enough said. </p>
<p>I checked our state administrative code. A bachelor’s degree is required, and it does not say specifically what the major, but it does specify 3-4 semesters’ worth of work in specific surveying and related science courses. An English major working summers is not remotely qualified; a civil engineering major could probably put together a program that included the requisite coursework, but might need an extra year to satisfy all requirements. So the quest is to locate the schools that offer those courses.</p>
<p>Of course, I have “rounded up the usual suspects” by digging into the curricula at engineering schools. I do know of scattered surveying programs, and the posts above have supplemented that. But I don’t want to overlook options. I’d rather start from a comprehensive list and cross things off. So it makes sense to go to a reliable, comprehensive source and get a complete list of programs. That is proving elusive. So the real perplexity is why collegeboard.org’s “Big Future” search engine is so unreliable, when you search for schools by major. I also wonder if they fully upload the programs that each school offers. This is not the first time its results have been glaringly incomplete. It uses very specific terminology for a major, which might vary a bit from what some of the schools call it (although synonymous) and the schools do not come up. </p>
<p>You are going to have to use multiple college-matching search engines to track down something like this. If I recall correctly, I used four different college-matching search engines in addition to other career-specific lists of institutions that I found through other methods when I was helping Happykid identify places that offered her specific major. It was a nightmare. The search engine that worked best for her was <a href=“College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics”>https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/</a> but that still didn’t pull up everything. For engineering-related majors, you probably could just start with <a href=“http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx”>http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx</a></p>
<p>Happy, you’re right. In this case, even the usual channels such as ABET and the surveyors’ professional association have not been much help. It is more work than normal. There are a lot of two-year schools, which are not our target, and not sufficient for licensure (in our state, at least). Thanks for the link.</p>