Teaching surveying has been a long tradition and in 1987 the existing was revised and expanded. The goal was to create a four-year degree in surveying and mapping science that could meet the needs of the surveying profession in the central southeastern region of the nation.
Many states now require professional surveyors to attend professional development seminars annually.
The requirements for new licensees have also been modified to include a formal education component. In Tennessee, all applicants for new license after July 2003, will need a four-year degree in Surveying and Mapping or a degree in a closely related field and a minimum number of credit hours in surveying courses. The ETSU program meets all of these requirements. Lecture classes can have 20 or more students but laboratory class size is usually limited to 15-18. Total stations, first-order theodolites, precise levels, GPS units, photogrammetric stereoplotters and Pentium computers are all available for students to experience and use.