Company
Mail McDonald Barnsley Surveyors
University study
Bachelor of Engineering (Surveying), University of New South Wales
Awards
2018 University Student Project of the Year (ESSSI Awards)
Hannah Pearce is a graduate surveyor who is going places.
At the 2018 NSW Excellence in Surveying Spatial Information Awards, she was shocked to hear her name being called out as the winner of the University Student Project of the Year. Her lecturers, family members, fellow students and employers however wouldn’t have been too surprised – Hannah demonstrated an interest in maths and surveying from a high school age and has worked hard to apply that enthusiasm towards a promising career.
It’s a career that’s only just getting started. A Life Without Limits spoke with Hannah about her background, how she is helping high school leavers access the profession, and what her own future in the surveying industry might hold.
Hannah first began to develop an interest in surveying as trigonometry was taught at school.
“I was always keen on maths, of course, largely due to the succession of terrific teachers I had at school,” she explains.
“I found out that surveying existed as a profession in Year 10, when we started learning trigonometry. My maths teacher was always very pro-surveying, and so it sat in the back of my mind while in years 11 and 12 I was trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life.”
It’s interesting to hear that it was an educator’s enthusiasm for maths that instilled that same love in Hannah. Real life experiences cemented that passion, however.
“After graduating from school in 2012, I took a gap year and spent some months working on a biodynamic farm near Cologne.” She isn’t shy to admit that a decent part of her trip was spent, “Boring my travel companions by pointing out every European survey mark in the pavement.”
Upon returning from her travels, Hannah knew that surveying study was the choice for her. As she puts it, “I did two weeks work experience with a firm in Canberra to check that I didn’t hate it before committing to a four-year course.
“I moved to Sydney in 2014 to start my surveying degree at UNSW, and the rest is history.”
Hannah also admits that job security was a factor – she realised surveying “almost” guaranteed “a job at the end of my degree as surveyors are in such high demand.”
It was hard but rewarding work from the get-go studying surveying. Hannah’s enthusiasm, as it is for many surveying students, was good motivation and fuel for study. Studying at the University of NSW was also a positive.
“The surveying lecturers are fantastic, especially Craig Roberts and Bruce Harvey, who love their subject and teach it in a manner which makes it interesting,” Hannah says.
The outdoor aspect of surveying study was also particularly appealing.
“There were enough outdoor pracs to stop us from getting vitamin-D deficiency, and playing with ArcGIS in our Geospatial Information Systems subjects kept my inner painter happy.”
One of the great things about study surveying as a study path, Hannah suggests, is the diversity of approaches.
“There are a few different pathways into surveying,” she outlines.
“There’s the route I took – uni degree first and then get a job. Other people go to CIT or TAFE to learn the basics and start work, then do the degree later either through on-campus or distance education if they decide they want to get registered.”
When the opportunity came up to enter her research project on new survey network computation methods into the 2018 NSW Excellence in surveying and Spatial Information Awards, one element in particular piqued Hannah’s interest.
“The main reason I entered my project was that it guaranteed a free ticket to the EISSI awards,” Hannah admits, “which is always a good evening in terms of venue, food and networking opportunities.
“I put together a few hundred words about the project and sent it, along with my thesis and some images, to the ISNSW organisers.
“I didn’t really expect to win since my project was full of maths and didn’t contain any really “shiny” elements such as epic adventures or ground-breaking discoveries.”
But an enthusiasm for maths, numbers and figures was a robust foundation for an excellent entry that the judges immediately responded to.
“At the awards night I was called up on stage, in a slight state of shock, to receive the award,” Hannah recalls.
With a prestigious award under her belt, and a role straight out of university as a graduate surveyor at Mail McDonald Barnsley Surveyors, Hannah is thinking about the future.
“I’m working on registration,” Hannah says. “That means becoming a Registered Surveyor, the only type of person who can legally sign off on definitions of, and changes to, land boundaries.
“With all the construction and new subdivisions going on at the moment, Registered Surveyors are in high demand.”
To get there, she’s going to have to continue to draw on her enthusiasm for her profession.
“The registration process takes a bunch of work and exams, and about two to three years.”
In the meantime, Hannah is keen to inspire others the way her maths teacher inspired her.
While she was studying at university, she was a student ambassador for UNSW Engineering, lending a hand organising and overseeing on-campus events and outreach trips. The aim was to teach school children about engineering and similar career paths – and for Hannah, that meant surveying.
Once uni was completed though, Hannah was sure to continue that work.
“I try to help inform high school students about the existence of surveying and how it relates to what they see on construction sites, or that boundary dispute that their neighbours had, and how it relates to the maths they might’ve learned at school,” Hannah explains.
Based back in her old home territory of Canberra, Hannah is bringing surveying back to the masses.
“I help out by visiting the year 10 trigonometry classes at my old high school,” she explains. “We do a practical activity – measuring the height of the school hall – to give them a chance to use the surveying equipment and get a bit of a feel for what I do in my job.”
When asked how she would describe surveying to those new to the subject area, that enthusiasm comes shining through.
“If you like the idea of working outdoors someplace different every day, if you like maths, and if you like playing with gadgets, then it’s definitely worth looking into as a career.”