In my last post, I discussed the ways that we should be thankful for land surveying. For this post, I would like to focus on some of the pluses of being a land surveyor, how it can bring much joy to your life if you decide to pursue it as a career. Joy. That’s an important word, especially this time of the year. The more joy we can bring into our lives, the better, and a land surveyor makes it his or her purpose to foster that. There is almost a special connection that develops between the land surveyor and the land, and that’s the way we like it.
Writer Andy Orin was curious about a land surveying career and interviewed Mark Mason, a land surveyor in British Columbia, for the popular magazine Life Hacker. Of land surveying, Mason says, “It’s a career with a unique mix of physical and intellectual challenges. We need to know how interpret dense legislation or calculate a complex spiral curve – but also how to sharpen a machete or dig through frozen ground with a frost bar!”
Yes, that is a great way of putting it. The most beautiful part of land surveying is that it is a combination of mind and body. You have to stretch the limits of what’s in your head and what’s in your hands. Such mixed purpose jobs seem in low supply nowadays, which makes a land surveying career all the more attractive. Mason continues, “I liked the idea of working outside, using my body and my mind together. I haven’t been disappointed! Land surveying can be very physical work, but there is a strong intellectual and technological component as well. I was also 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.”
At BLAZE Design Inc., I can attest to the fact that land surveying is not a disappointment. Between topographic services, supervision of site construction, or commercial and industrial site design, I tiptoe between using my body and my mind and most of the time I am using both at the same time. If you are considering starting a new career in the New Year, becoming a land surveyor might be a worthy pursuit.