Chapter 07. Educational Equivalency Requirements

This chapter applies to an applicant who seeks eligibility to sit for the applicable examination for licensure as a professional land surveyor, as described in Business Occupations and Professions Article, Title 15, Annotated Code of Maryland, and this chapter.

Pursuant to Business Occupations and Professions Article, §15-305, Annotated Code of Maryland, an applicant for the appropriate licensing examination as a professional land surveyor shall meet certain experiential requirements. The experience that an applicant is to demonstrate pursuant to the above statutory authority must be acceptable to the Board for Professional Land Surveyors.

In order to assure a minimum acceptable level of competence of an applicant immediately after the passage of the applicable examination, the Board considers that it is in the best interests of Maryland consumers that the applicant has a diversified prelicensing experience in different aspects of land surveying.

To further the Board's goal in protecting the interests of Maryland consumers and also in order to guide an applicant in obtaining an appropriate type and amount of pre-licensing experience, the Board is promulgating these regulations to set forth the criteria for the type and amount of work experience that may be acceptable to the Board.

Applicants claiming the respective number of years of land surveying experience required in Business Occupations and Professions Article, §15-305(b), (c), (d), (e), or (f), Annotated Code of Maryland, shall demonstrate that the experience was gained by performing tasks in a variety of diverse surveying categories, including, but not limited to, the following:

The acceptable work experience described in §A(5) of this regulation may be acquired by a combination of education and experience approved by the Board, as more particularly described in Regulations .03—.05 of this chapter.

The Board has the final authority with regard to both the quality and quantity of acceptable work experience.

An applicant for the principles and practice examination under Business Occupation and Professions Article, §15-305, Annotated Code of Maryland shall have 18 months of work experience generally described in Business Occupations and Professions Article, §15-101(k)(2)(vi), Annotated Code of Maryland, and commonly known as “minor engineering experience”.

An applicant may be able to meet an 18-month experiential requirement set forth in this regulation by the following methods:

An applicant may claim 3 semester credit hours as an equivalent of 6 months of minor engineering experience after the completion, to the Board's satisfaction, of the courses described in this chapter.

In order to be eligible for the Board's approval, the courses of instruction shall be in the following areas:

The Board may choose to approve courses of instruction in areas other than those listed in §B of this regulation.

The courses described in §§B and C of this regulation are collectively referred to as eligible courses.

The Board may approve the eligible course if the following requirements are met:

The Board may, at its discretion, approve courses successfully completed by an applicant before the effective date of this chapter if the courses meet the criteria and standards set forth in this chapter.

An applicant shall furnish, at the time of filing the appropriate examination application, evidence of having completed, to the Board's satisfaction, the eligible course or courses, as described in Regulation .03 of this chapter.

A semester credit hour is defined as not less than 15 standard 50-minute classroom hours of instruction.