Hermansen sidesteps two fundamental differences about becoming licensed as a surveyor compared to becoming licensed in these other professions:  In these other professions, the requirements are a general college-level education plus additional years of specific education in which on-the-job training and experience are built in; and in these other professions, the students/apprentices generally are not getting paid, while would-be surveyors are getting paid while obtaining experience.

          For example, to become an attorney, one has to obtain a four-year bachelor's degree in which he or she receives a general education that includes having a superior grade-point average, they have to make a high score on the Law School Aptitude Test, and then they attend law school, which, although somewhat stereotyped, is practically practicing law every waking minute, seven days a week, for three years under professors who are experts in the matter.  Upon completion of law school, they can take the Bar Exam, and, upon passing, become lawyers.  For one year after becoming lawyers, they are required to go through the Transition into Law Practice Program (TILPP) in which they have regular contacts and meetings with a mentor who guides them, according to a rigid structure, on legal practice, as well as providing advice on situations the new attorney confronts on a day to day basis.

          I am not a lawyer but have spent enough time in and around the University of Georgia Law School and Emory University Law School to see much of this firsthand.  Law schools and the law libraries are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, when classes are in session.  A day in the life of a law student, consisting of attending class lectures/discussions, research and writing in the law library, and participating in mock trials, often begins around 7 am and ends close to mid-night.  Some students are in the study rooms and library all night long.  During exams, many spend whole days and nights preparing in the study rooms and the law libraries with only brief letups.  Law schools have courtrooms in which trials--both mock and real--are conducted.  For the mock trials, a professor or a real judge acts as the judge.  Mock jurors are solicited from the general public and from the general student body outside the law school.  I have acted as a mock juror.  The "trials" are conducted by the law students acting as attorneys while their professors observe.  Most professors in reputable law schools have LL.M. degrees from Ivy League law schools so that they are experts in the law and law practice.  Law professors do a certain amount of law practice on the side to maintain their proficiency in accord with what is going on in the real world.

          Hermansen mentions doctors, nurses, and dentists.  For these professions, one has to obtain a four-year bachelor's degree in which he or she receives a general education that includes having a superior grade-point average, they have to make superior grades on the entrance exams, and then they attend a professional school, which, for doctors is typically eight years, for nurses two years, and for dentists, four years.  Classes in these professional schools typically run from 8 am to 5 pm, five days a week.  Much of it is the actual practice of medicine, nursing, or dentistry on actual patients, in actual hospitals, under board-certified doctors or dentists who are experts and who have had years of experience.

          Hermansen mentions pharmacists.  One of my roommates in undergraduate school was a pharmacy major.  Besides the usual rigorous requirements for entrance into the program, pharmacy school consists of a two-year pre-professional program and then a four-year professional program.  In the four-year professional program, classes/labs run continuously from 8 or 9 am to 4 or 5 pm, with time off for lunch, Monday through Friday.  Besides attending class, the students work in laboratories in which they practice the actual routines that pharmacists practice, and the students spend a certain number of hours working as interns in actual pharmacies under registered pharmacists.  When not in class, lab, or internship, they spend practically every waking minute studying and writing technical papers.  All this is under the tutelage/supervision of registered pharmacist/professors who have advanced degrees and years of experience.

          Disregarding, for this discussion, the process of becoming a licensed surveyor in Georgia without having a college degree, a person who has obtained a four-year degree and then goes to work for a surveying firm with the goal of becoming licensed, receives a salary, which, in most cases, makes it worthwhile even though they are not licensed.  Applicants in the other professions enumerated generally do not receive salaries while obtaining their specialized education and doing their internships, and they pay tuition to boot.

          If we are to have a degree-only licensing system for surveyors and engineers, it might run something like this: A person would complete a two-year pre-professional college level program, consisting of basic college courses, make superior grades in that, and pass an entrance exam for admission into the professional college program.  The professional program would last three years and consist of classes running from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, in which the students would receive classroom instruction and would perform actual property surveys, topographic mapping, geodetic work, etc., under instructors who have PhDs and are licensed land surveyors and engineers.  The students would spend most of the remaining time each week studying, writing research papers, etc., so that practically every waking minute would be devoted to learning the art of surveying/engineering/ geomatics.

          It is probably too much to expect that such a program can be implemented in the foreseeable future, but we can work on getting the four-year degree requirement implemented, and, when that happens, work on a dual system by which a person can become a licensed surveyor or engineer with the four-year degree plus a certain number of years of experience; or, alternatively, a two-year pre-professional program and then a three-year professional surveying program, as described above.  Either approach might be sufficient to qualify a person to survey land.

          When I look back on my college education and experience as a surveyor, my general perception is that about 50% of the knowledge that is absolutely essential for performing property surveys I learned in college and there was and has been little opportunity to learn it on the job; about 25% of the knowledge that is absolutely essential to performing property surveys could be learned equally well in college or on the job; and about 25% of the knowledge that is absolutely essential to performing property surveys was learned on the job, and, under the present absence of the needed courses being offered anywhere, could not very well be learned in an academic setting.  For example, I took algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus under professors who had PhD's in mathematics and years of experience in teaching and working mathematical problems.  I had two undergraduate law courses, one of which emphasized real property law, under professors who were members of the bar association and had had years of experience practicing law.  We were taught how to do legal research and were required to write papers based on research in the law school library.  I attended classes practically every day and then spent several hours of each day studying the matter, working problems, and researching and writing papers according to course outlines the professors laid out.  I have seen little opportunity to learn these matters on the job given the fact that the owner of the companies I worked for and fellow employees were unwilling to spend any significant time in instructing me and the other employees.  And it would have been very difficult for me to try to master these subjects on my own because I did not know how to go about learning them in a structured and systematic way as is offered in college.  Adequate law libraries are available only in about a dozen places in Georgia and so are pretty much out of reach for most persons working to become licensed surveyors.

          One of the exercises we did in college was the class was divided into small groups, each group was assigned a real, acreage tract of land, we were required to go to the courthouse and research the title to the tract back fifty years, we were required to look up the deeds to each adjoining tract, we surveyed our respective tracts on the ground (with the permission of the owners) without setting any new corners, we computed our survey, and then drew, to scale, a diagram of our "survey."  As another exercise, we did an actual topographic survey and from that made a topographic map.  These were mostly one-time only exercises performed after extensive class lecturing and study.  If a pre-professional and professional college program were required for surveyors, these and many other real-life exercises would be performed multiple times within the course framework.

          The state surveying exams I took for licensure addressed much of the roughly 50% of the knowledge that is absolutely essential for performing property surveys that I learned in college and that could not very well have been learned on the job, only in a pseudo-fashion--nothing like the rigor as it was taught in college.  My guess is the State Board feels obligated to dumb down the exams to the point that a certain minimum percentage of applicants pass regardless of whether they really understand land surveying.

          I can't resist observing that, given the poor quality of the work that many surveying firms in Georgia perform, a person desiring to become licensed is often better off with no experience at all than to receive any amount of the kind of "experience" these firms offer.  At least a college education, which is derived from professors who are proven experts, is virtually guaranteed to confer some knowledge and ability in those who wish to pursue surveying.

          Before posting the above comments, I sent a copy to Knud Hermansen for his review, as follows:

From: fcadle@bellsouth.net

Sent: Friday, November 4, 2022

To: um.set@maine.edu

Subject: Farris Cadle--"Thoughts on Professional Practice and Education"

Hi Knud,

          Attached is an essay I have written in response to your essay “Thoughts on Professional Practice and Education”, the latter of which appeared in the newsletter of the Surveying and Mapping Society of Georgia.  I would like to offer you the opportunity to further respond if you wish.  If you do respond, I will include your response with my essay.  I plan to post this on the web site of the Surveying and Mapping Society of Georgia.

Thanks

Farris Cadle

From: Knud Hermansen <knud.hermansen@maine.edu>

Sent: Friday, November 4, 2022

To: fcadle@bellsouth.net

Subject: Re: Farris Cadle--"Thoughts on Professional Practice and Education"

Farris:

          My response is to thank you for such a thoughtful and well-reasoned counter to my article.  Your article was interesting, educational, and thought provoking. I appreciate that you took the time to read my article, consider its merits, and provide a response.  The article is well-written and persuasive. Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Knud E. Hermansen

P.L.S., P.E., Ph.D., Esq.

Professor - SVT/CET (Retired)

5711 Boardman Hall, Room 119

Orono, Maine 04469-5711

207-631-1541

knud.hermansen@maine.edu