steel8909 wrote:
Nice to see an RPF in here! Did you learn a lot of on the job field skills at UBC or were was it your prior experience that got you that engineering job? Definitely going to consider RPF a long term goal. And what's your opinion on the long term outlook of the industry in Western Canada?
Also do you do any hiring? If you do which universities or college do you think better prepare their students for work?
Things have changed a lot since I studied at UBC. It's my alma mater and I don't really want to slam them too much, but nowadays when I hire summer students from UBC the first question I ask is what skill sets do they have. To my dismay, I've learned that unless the student has some work experience, many of the first and even second year students don't know how to use a compass or read a map. These two fundamental skills were taught to us in our second class during first year when I was a student (many years ago), but apparently not anymore.
We are finding that students coming out of UNB (University of New Brunswick), and the tech colleges in BC (Vancouver Island University, UNBC, & BCIT) have a higher level of "entry level" skills sets that we require for our summer programs (surveys, etc). However, having said that, some of the fundamental skills can be learned on the job if the employer is willing to put in the time and effort required to do so.
As for myself, I gained the fundamental skills at UBC, but most of my learning since then has been on the job training and observation. I'm still learning something new everyday. I think that's what university teaches you - how to learn and how to understand & relate things to what you are observing.
The long term prospects for RPF's in BC, in my opinion, looks promising. In fact, unless more students take up Forestry as a career, I can see a shortage of experienced foresters within the next decade or so, as more of us "old timers" consider retirement.
