A lot of people don't think much about what land surveyors do. In a nutshell, we are the interpreters and providers of landmarks and records that directly impact real property.
Sometimes I imagine a surveyor 100 years from now reading my plan, retracing my boundaries, and finding the monuments that I set. It's an honor to make a mark in history like that.
Out of the long list of nature’s gifts to man, none is perhaps so utterly essential to human life as soil.
Land surveyors can spend as much time reading legislation, bylaws, and engineering documents as we spend in front of an instrument in the field or calculating coordinates for a subdivision. We are mathematicians, historians, project managers, advocates, engineers, and even chainsaw operators!
If you're looking for an adventure, an intellectual challenge, and a close-knit community of professionals, consider land surveying! It's not for everyone, and I'd recommend working as a surveyor's assistant or office staff before committing to the necessary schooling.
When engineers and quantity surveyors discuss aesthetics and architects study what cranes do we are on the right road.
There are lots of ways to design a workflow - for instance, some land surveyors book their notes by hand, and some use electronic data collectors. Every firm has its own unique way of arriving at the end product. However, from a licensed land surveyor, the product should always be of the same high quality.
We say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.
There's a popular misconception that property boundaries are based on coordinates that surveyors can simply "walk to" with our instruments. The reality is that, while physical coordination of monuments is easier than it's ever been, property boundaries often need to be determined based on evidence and plans that are old, decrepit, and done with different technology and expectations than we have today.
It's important to know that, unlike lawyers, land surveyors put the public interest first. That means we're not biased by our client - this means that the property line will be drawn in the most equitable position, regardless of which neighbor is paying the bill.
Sympathetic cracks. A term frequently used by architects and surveyors in terms of ageing houses. I know what they mean.
In general, salary for land surveyors is often similar to that of a professional engineer or lawyer - surveyors are often "comfortable" but not "wealthy."
Legal land surveyors are few and far between and can find themselves in demand.
I'm lucky enough to split my time between the field and the office. Some land surveyors in larger outfits can work mostly from behind a desk, managing many field crews at once.
Professional land surveyors take on a lot of responsibility, and should be compensated appropriately.
I think that people can get caught up in the "gee-whiz" technology of surveying, which is constantly changing, and forget about the legal aspects and the professional responsibility that surveyors bear - something that hasn't changed much at all in hundreds of years.
People sometimes are under the impression that finding their property corners should cost as much as changing their oil or blowing out their sprinklers. What they don't realize is that land surveyors are required to stand behind their work for the rest of their lives.
When I bought my first house in London with my husband-to-be, our surveyor said: "Nicki, you're paying top dollar, but it's not an investment," and I said: "But we're buying a home, not an investment."
Who knows what crumbling infrastructure lies beneath our sleeping children? Actually, many people do - they pay surveyors to take a look.
Some surveyors live for the work, putting in weeks or months at a time in remote locations. With a young family and hobbies that I'm passionate about, that isn't the path I've chosen. Like in many careers, you need to make your own decisions and follow your own path.
I was attracted to the direct connection with history that land surveyors experience in the form of plans, field notes, and from surveying monuments from decades or even centuries in the past.
Land surveyors start as employees, and move up to partnership in a firm or to ownership of their own enterprise if they wish. Some wind up working for government, private corporations, or public enterprise.
I've met very few professional land surveyors who regret their career path, and even fewer, who are out of work, even during economic slowdowns.
We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any handling of material substance.
Bel Air, I am convinced, was laid out by some diabolic sadist who deliberately decided not to use a compass or a surveyor.
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