Anton Koss, left, is pursuing an associate degree in surveying engineering technology and Gabrielle Avila is working toward a bachelor's degree in surveying engineering.
DALLAS, Pa. — Penn State Wilkes-Barre’s robust surveying engineering program offers two degrees, an associate’s in surveying engineering technology and a bachelor of science in surveying engineering.
The associate’s degree program is designed to prepare students for private and public service as technicians for the industry, while students in the bachelor’s program explore the legal, professional and business-related aspects of the industry.
The two-year Surveying Engineering Technology program provides the students with the technical skills using traditional surveying instruments and the computational skills to solve problems typically encountered in boundary and construction surveying. The first two years of both the Surveying Engineering and Surveying Engineering Technology programs share these courses. Additionally, the four-year Surveying Engineering Program goes into greater depth in the legal and professional aspects of land surveying, covering subjects such as photogrammetry, laser scanning, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), geographic information systems, geodesy, global positioning systems, stormwater management and land subdivision design. It also has greater depth in the basic sciences and mathematics, providing students with the skills to solve tomorrow's problems.
Penn State Wilkes-Barre is one of only six locations in the country offering an engineering degree that combines surveying, geomatics and geospatial studies.
The degree program students opt for is a personal choice, based on their interests, goals and personal situations. Penn State Wilkes-Barre offers academic advising to help guide students in their decision. Students in all programs at the campus receive personal attention with small class sizes and faculty devoted to their students.
In honor of National Surveyors Week, held each year in mid-March, here we profile two campus students in surveying engineering, one pursuing an associate’s degree and one working toward a bachelor’s degree.
Anton Koss
Anton Koss, a resident of Sweet Valley, is in his second year of the associate in Surveying Engineering Technology program.
Having gone to high school at Lake-Lehman right down the road, Koss was familiar with Penn State Wilkes-Barre. He said he opted to attend the local campus so he could stay close to home and family and keep his part-time job at McDonald’s in Shavertown.
As he approached the end of his time in high school, he was unsure of the path he wanted to pursue. His father suggested he talk to family friend Adam Cardillo, a licensed surveyor and graduate of Penn State Wilkes-Barre.
“I set up a meeting with him and he showed me CAD (computer-aided design) drawings he had made and told me about his job and I started thinking more about it. I like math and being outside and surveying combines both. It also has a lot of job opportunities,” Koss said. “It also helped that Wilkes-Barre is the only Penn State campus with a surveying program, and one of only a few in the country. That really solidified my decision. Penn State Wilkes-Barre was the only school I applied to.”
He said he made the decision to switch to the associate’s program from the bachelor’s program last summer in the middle of his internship, wanting to finish a degree program yet begin working full-time as soon as possible. After Koss works for a few years, he hopes to return to college for a bachelor’s degree in surveying and attain his professional license in surveying, he said.
His internship has already led to a job offer at the firm where he interned, Navarro and Wright in Harrisburg. During his field work, he was able to use what he had learned at Penn State Wilkes-Barre. He worked four days a week at a minimum of 10 hours a day on projects primarily in northeastern Pennsylvania, but also on jobs as far away as Clearfield County. Some of the projects Koss worked on included bridges in Taylor, Moosic and New Milford, surveying around the bridge and collecting data prior to construction, and a bridge over Interstate 81 in Sugarloaf Township, surveying during the construction of the bridge.
At the conclusion of the summer, Koss’ supervisor complimented him on his work and offered him a full-time position as a surveying technician after he graduates.
In his final year of his program at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Koss continues to learn topics in the classroom and implement them during field work to prepare him for his career. This semester, he is learning about boundary work, traditional surveying, photogrammetry and data collection. In one of his classes, students are working to create a topographic map of the campus “from field to finished product.”
“I really enjoy my classes. I like seeing both aspects of surveying: the inside learning and boundary research and the outside data collection,” he said. “I also like the small size of the campus. My classes are all small and the professors know my name. They have all been understanding of our busy schedules.”
Koss is a member of the Surveying Society at Penn State Wilkes-Barre and is their representative to the Student Government Association (SGA). The Surveying Society is a student-run organization at the Wilkes-Barre campus affiliated with the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors (PSLS) with a mission of providing students with professional development and networking opportunities in the field of surveying engineering. The organization arranges company visits to talk to students about internships and job opportunities in the field of surveying.
He attended the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors’ annual conference the last two years with a Penn State Wilkes-Barre contingent of students, faculty and staff. During the conference, students were able to learn more about their field of study through presentations and sessions. They also had the opportunity to meet and network with industry professionals.
Gabrielle Avila
Gabrielle Avila is a first-year student majoring in the Surveying Engineering program after transferring from Luzerne County Community College. She lives in Wyoming and graduated from Dallas Area High School and, like Koss, also wanted to stay close to home to attend college.
“Financially, it was a lot easier for me to stay at home. Penn State Wilkes-Barre was close and cost less than the private schools in the area,” Avila said. “I liked that it’s a smaller school. It has been a good fit for me and I feel like I made a good choice.”
Passionate about math, science and the outdoors, she was leaning toward studying some sort of engineering when she learned about surveying engineering, which would combine her interests.
“I really love the environment. It would be fantastic if I could incorporate my love for nature and conservation with surveying in my job one day,” she said.
Avila is particularly interested in working on large-scale projects and felt the bachelor’s program would suit her interests and provide her with the opportunities to achieve her goals. She said she hopes to eventually earn a master’s degree in another engineering discipline and attain licensure as a professional surveyor (PS) and professional engineer (PE).
“I picture myself working at a big engineering firm,” she said. “I felt it would be more beneficial for me to go straight into a four-year program. What I can get out of it is more aligned with what I want to do.”
Avila secured an internship through the Surveying Career Summit hosted at Penn State Wilkes-Barre last fall, when she met representatives for Civil and Environmental Consultants (CEC). She applied for an internship at their Pittsburgh office and was accepted for the position for the upcoming summer.
She said Penn State Wilkes-Barre’s surveying program is unique in providing the knowledge that can help students get an internship after only their first year.
“I love how soon we jump into things,” Avila said. “I’m already familiar with the tools and software we use. That lets us get internships even in our first year. Without the career fair, I would not have known about the company I’ll be working for this summer.”
She said she appreciates both the knowledgeable faculty and the topics she is studying.
“My professors have been helpful and understanding, and they have made concepts approachable,” she said. “I’m learning programs I will be using almost on a daily basis in my career. Last semester, I had a course that gave me a good basis to know what it’s like to be in the field and how to collect data. I like learning both ends of surveying. The field work and the data work are both useful.”
On campus, Avila is part of the Surveying Society, Students For Justice, and Nittany Gives, joining the non-surveying clubs “because I wanted to find different communities to join and interact with other students on campus,” she said. In addition to the campus clubs and her studies, she is a server at Rikasa in Pittston.
While Avila said she initially thought it might be “terrifying” to be a female in a field that is traditionally made up of more men than women, her experience so far has put her at ease.
“All of my classmates are great. The men respect me and don’t make me feel any different for being a woman,” Avila said. “When I attended the PSLS conference, it was great to talk to other female surveyors to get their perspective. They were very helpful and made me feel safe in my decision to be in a male-dominated field. I always tell people that I know I can do it. I know I am capable and confident.”
