Forest Surveying Class at Virginia Tech

I need to start out by saying that I have never worked so hard in my life to get a “D” for a college course.?I signed up for Forest Surveying at Virginia Tech University in 1974 as a way to increase my background in landscape management.?There were about 130 students in the class taught by Professor Unus Earp.?From the very beginning, we knew it was not going to be an easy class.?There were several labs that required us to spend several hours each week to use surveying equipment to do mapping on the college campus.?This is where I learned not to use a ball point pen to take field notes of readings and calculations.?As the quarter progressed, it seemed that I had more than my share of mistakes in mapping and doing calculations.?I started to wonder if I was actually going to pass the course at all.??Fortunately, I squeaked by with a “D”.

Over the past 48 years, I have found that Forest Surveying has been the most practical college course I’ve ever taken, because I’ve used what I’ve learned to help my staff and me do a better job at managing the landscape areas.?After all, it is hard to manage something that has not been mapped and measured.?As a result of the mapping process, we can easily share an area map with those in charge of the budget.?A map easily conveys the idea of how much material and costs will it take to improve and maintain the overall quality of the landscape whether it is for the general campus usage or for watching an intense crowd and the athletic fields.?

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