Land surveying has been a positive influence on my life, and I'd encourage anyone who hasn't considered it to give it a chance!

Completing a large or difficult survey can be a very satisfying thing, especially if there have been hurdles or setbacks along the way. In our work, we get to "tick" off jobs quite often, so the sense of completion can also be rewarding.

Learning how to weigh evidence and fairly re-establish a boundary can be as much an art as a science.

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 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.

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.

Building smart processes to streamline the workflow can make the work easier and the results more reliable, which keeps my head above water and my clients happy.