posted
I am a freshman in Civil/Environmental Engineering and am looking for a summer internship. I've gotten an offer to help surveyors, but I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing.
Are any of you surveyors or have surveying experience? What do you guys do?
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I surveyed for 4 years. I mainly did residential loan surveys, the easiest kind. Occasionally I would do a commercial or topographic survey.
Hmm, trying to summarize the work might take me a minute, I'll have to think about it. I'll try to post something later when I get back from my little sister's house, ok, Moby?
BTW, I know your not new but I have never interacted with you so .
Meeting Lucky4 has given me a different perspective on lurkers, so I wonder if you know more about me than I about you (nothing)?
Posts: 327 | Registered: Oct 2003
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My advice: if your future is not in surveying (you think) keep looking. Mostly because if surveying isn't your interest you will be really bored during this internship. Also, though all job experience is useful, and the closer you get to your professional field the better (in terms of experience), surveying is about as far away as you can get from most other CE endeavors (structures, geotech, etc...) and still be in CE. It's less of a boost for future employment than other things would be. Though looking for internships after your Freshman year may not be unique, it's certainly top-tier, so whatever you go with will look good anyways.
And to be honest, don't expect any of the internships to be just unbelievably cool, internship often means doing the boring, easy, but essential work that no one else wants to do. Though having taken surveying (Morbo having done actual surveying for 4 years double trumps my experience) I have to say that the chances of you doing exciting work is minimal.
posted
That's the thing Hobbes, I don't know what type of Civil Engineering I want to do. Me being only a freshman, I haven't really taken any specifically Civil Engineering classes yet (just the basic every-engineer-must-have-these classes). I do want to focus more on Environmental Engineering, but again, being a freshman doesn't have a whole lot of choices.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Hobbes is right, he usually is. You can probably learn all the surveying you need in a class or two. An internship more directly related to EE would look better on your resume. But, that could be hard to find as a freshman. And you will be working with surveys and surveyors some, depending on what kind of CE you do. I would guess with an EE specialty it wouldn't be that much. Does internship in this case mean "no money"? In that case I would keep looking. You could try to keep this as a back-up option, or get a job surveying for the summer, that would give you money plus a little experience.
Anyway, the basics of residential surveying, in Georgia. Other types of surveying, like construction surveying, and other states or countries could be different. 1)records research. Looking up old deeds, surveys, subdivision plats, highway plans, etc at the courthouse and DOT. Some courthouses have some deeds on the net, but most don't have them all, just the newest. Also, some surveyors demand title searches before they accept a job. 2)POB. Every deed has a Point of Beginning, a known spot you can start the survey from--usually a property corner, intersection, bridge, etc. It's a bad sign if the POB is "nail in Old Man Johnson's oak." 3)find property corners. Starting from the POB, you go a distance and direction stated in the deed, to your first property corner. Get out the metal detector, start looking. Dig up N old toys, car parts, civil war memorabilia, etc before finally digging up the pin marking the property corner. Modern pins are usually 1 ft. sections of rebar. Old ones could be heavier metal rods, car axles, etc. If they have been surveyed anytime in the last few years they will have flagging, colored plastic tape, tied to the end. Find the other corners using distances and angles from the deed, and common sense (follow fence lines, etc.)
4)Start shooting, Tex! Once you find all the corners, you can whip out the instrument and shoot the POB, pins, house corners, etc. Most modern surveyors use a "total station" which combines a laser range finder with theodolite (measures angles and elevations.) "Shooting" means looking through the instument and taking a shot, or sight-- a range, elevation and angle from backsight.
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