Is the NVQ worth it?

[Wax]

If you are ever unemployed have a look at the training available to you as many courses will be paid for you and remember things like City and Guilds evening classes . Some courses are modular You do not even have to take the exams I have picked up a lot of skills this way. Do remember that learning to operate a machine and a bit of software is not learning how to survey

[Winders]

Wax: you'll be lucky these days with the dole paying your way in England- the only cash back in May 2010 for training was from the literacy/numeracy budget so no use if you have any form of formal education. The conversation I had went along the lines of:

Dole Office: "we can pay for CSCS exams out of it, what level of education have you got?"
Me: "An MA."
Dole Office. "Oh."

Of course, if you're on the dole you might be eligble for cheaper fees on adult education. Unfortunately, adult education has been absolutely knackered in recent years so good luck finding a course that way

[Stephen Jack]

Start at this site before you part with any money.

http://www.engineeringsurveyor.com/

Next get yourself a free cad package, and learn how to use it.

http://www.caddit.net/progecad/smart.php

Buy yourself a basic surveying book, nothing complicated, you can probably cobble together one off the net.

The smart way to to solve the funding problem is to work as an engineers asistant, you get paid and pick up training at the same time. Before I made it to junior engineer in 1994 I worked on the Glaxo research facility as an engineers asistant and then for a chartered surveyor in London. After learning how to setout, surveying is a doddle in the flat land arena. Curved surveying and GPS is more difficult. To improve your chances of getting your foot in the door you need to know how to set up targets over stations and the total station itself. You don't need to know how to use the total station, just place it corretly over the station.

Send me an email if you are interested and I will see if I can sort you out a job. The companies I worked for are in the south of England and are always looking for assistance with a positive attitude. I even had my wife trained up and work on some of my contracts before she became a teacher.

[gwyl]

Intrasis ... at a reasonable price of course.

from memory, the cost of doing an Intrasis course is pretty high, which is why MalmoKulturmiljo (a former employer) only put PO-types on the course, and they had then to train us up, whereas Riksantikvarieambetet (whose kit it is, and another former employer) paid for everyone from digger up for training to use it
@ cmdr_sven: at the end of the day it is well worth getting your hands on any training and then blowing your trumpet; and in the worse case scenario, putting a bit of unpaid time in if needs be to demonstrate that you are the (wo)man for the job
also, consider the type of employer; do you work for large companies with big take-ons and lay-offs or do you work for small companies and do you get repeat employment?

[BAJR]

Do not lose heart... search the night class time tables... ask your company. or... teach yourself. Thats what I did! I used books, online material and Open SOurce software.

[Stephen Jack]

Final tip buy a programmable calculator. If you follow the link I gave you will find some examples eg Casio. I prefer the HP42S or the HP41CV best caluculators every made, but they are can only be bought second and are now very expensive. If you take the maths in surveying and try and write programs for the calculator you will be well set. Bearing and distance from known coordinates is an easy one to start on.

and in the worse case scenario, putting a bit of unpaid time in if needs be to demonstrate that you are the (wo)man for the job
?

Ever wondered why the pay you get is so bad?
In a race to the bottom I'm sure archaeology will win
Archaeology is not an occupation its a hobby.

[kevin wooldridge]

I wouldn't waste money on a programmable calculator just to use on archaeological sites as most total stations built in the past 10 years will do allof the calculation for you. Infact one of joys about modern archaeological surveying is the fact you can rely on the machine to do most of the work for you.....

...infact I see that one reputable dealer is offering a reconditioned Leica 1100 robotic total station for ?1500 at the moment. Someone with initiative could buy that up, teach theirself to use it in a couple of days with the self-help manuals and start offering their services to any number of archaeology contractors on a day rate....I think the machine would pay for itself in a couple of months plus you end up with a seriously good skill....

[Stephen Jack]

I wouldn't waste money on a programmable calculator just to use on archaeological sites as most total stations built in the past 10 years will do allof the calculation for you. Infact one of joys about modern archaeological surveying is the fact you can rely on the machine to do most of the work for you.....

...infact I see that one reputable dealer is offering a reconditioned Leica 1100 robotic total station for ?1500 at the moment. Someone with initiative could buy that up, teach theirself to use it in a couple of days with the self-help manuals and start offering their services to any number of archaeology contractors on a day rate....I think the machine would pay for itself in a couple of months plus you end up with a seriously good skill....

Is this an example of why archaeology standards are so bad, wing it with a superficial understanding of the subject. What you will not know is why your screwing up and you will, the surveys will not be reliable. If you think I'm wrong try setting out with this type of skill level, that will find you out in a few days. The last job I worked on in the UK was Rutland Water water treatment facility, a 90 million pound project. The main contractors individual, set out the control network, the buildings position was skewed, 1.5m out of position in the worst case. His mistake was to rely on temporary stations someone had previuosly place in a bank, short distances and crap angles. What he should have done was to use the more permanent base line control in the road.
If you have a half baked method your data for people coming along after you will be useless. If you are going to just do local control, that will be of little value to others, not worth putting into a GIS system, it will be meaningless.

[Oxbeast]

Archaeology is not an occupation its a hobby.

I try not to feed the trolls, but it is a novel experience getting this type of insult in my own home, rather than on site.

[gwyl]

Ever wondered why the pay you get is so bad?
In a race to the bottom I'm sure archaeology will win
Archaeology is not an occupation its a hobby.

Stephen
It is an unfortunate truism of much professional life that you have to put in a bit extra in order to go farther; I know i have, and I suspect that most, of if not all, of the people with any responsibility on the board put in extra hours to get that skill well and truly sorted in their heads, the paper written, the job finished today rather than running into tomorrow or next week.
I think you'll find the same practices in any part of the construction industry, where people at and above a certain level are expected to do extra hours. To gain skills does mean investing some of one's own time as much as that of one's employer.

Blaming my pay on my 'hobby' smacks to me of blaming the economy on 'the last lot' (still! oh come on), the weather, and as pointed out yesterday elsewhere, no doubt the lack of light during the winter darkeness meant that shoppers couldn't see the price tag...

Pay is an issue related more to a state in which largely unfettered capitalism is seen as an unambiguous good and any attempt to improve wages and conditions is seen as rampant socialism; where taxation is only for the little people; and privatisation will sort out the ills of the world. It's nothing to do with my job, which is admittedly my hobby, per se but rather the state in which I live, and which I have campaigned against for such abuses of workers. Seeing as I have lived in other countries where taxation is higher but income and outgoings are in real and/or relative terms better adjusted in my favour as a worker, as a parent, and as a human being, I think that I am pretty clear in my head of the benefits of other ways of doing.