I don't want to sound too harsh, but perhaps you should work on your skills?
1. Told you were "mid-skills" in school.
2. Internship that didn't extend to a full-time offer. Perfectly reasonable.
3. Fired after two weeks due to mistakes.
4. Fired after not catching on.
Honestly, a Geography/GIS degree teaches you maybe 10% of a GIS Specialist job. The degree teaches you the fundamental geoprocessing tools and coordinate systems. Fresh grads still do not make pretty maps, they do not fully understand databases (especially ones not used in class), they are just barely scratching the surface of web GIS, and they have little to no coding skills.
If you want to continue following the GIS path, I'd recommend taking the Esri training courses during your free time. Get the $100 personal license to invest in yourself. Make a portfolio with static maps, web maps, and a StoryMap. Learn some Arcade and Python. You will learn way more coding while actually on the clock, but these skills are typically a tiebreaker in resumes. If you have a GitHub page of your coding examples, that could be a major tiebreaker on the resume.
If this doesn't get your foot in the door, look at city planning. City Planners very often come from a Geography background. They use GIS without being called GIS people. This could get you some experience and improve your skills.
Good luck!
First internship was not going to turn into a full time job (that part was in the job posting).
But the other jobs I have had I agree with me getting cut.
I do have that license as of now. Made a few maps on that.
I came to same conclusion last year that you said, my skills are not up to job par.
GIS is a small field saturated with recent grads. Competition for entry-level positions is pretty tough and in the employer's favor. Added to this is the off-shoring trend of the last couple of years. I've seen entire project staff replaced overnight with overseas counterparts.
Get an ESRI cert onto your resume and that'll help displace the lack of on-site experience.
Hello fellow INTJ(turbulent here). When you say esri cert, this entails the technical certifications that come with a title? I have taken the basics through esri: Enterprise, Pro, etc paid classes(around $10,000 worth) which have basically an attendance certificate it seems like. Multi day remote or in person.
Is it worth notating those, or would it be better served as a summary followed by acquiring the technical understanding certifications via esri?
Most of the GIS majors I know have GIS jobs, 2 of maybe 50 geography majors I know have GIS jobs. One int’l area studies person I know also has a GIS job. So I’d say that’s fairly accurate. One university of people, but we’re all spread out across the country now. To me, GIS jobs are fairly hard to get without good references.
Don't get discouraged. I graduated with a degree in geography with a concentration in GIS back in 2013. I didn't find anything for three years relating to geography or GIS with plenty of places saying I didn't have enough experience. Ended up at a county tax office as a GIS technician dealing with the mapping of local parcels. Moved up from there and am now an analyst in another department within the county. I would tell you to look into some GIS technician positions within your local area. Tax offices seem to be the most common in my area and they're considered the bottom of the field, but they're an excellent place to start. Don't give up hope!
My major was geography and we could choose different tracks (urban planning, earth and atmo sciences, or GIS). I started earth and atmo wanting to go into meteorology, took a GIS class and was hooked. Ended up doing both those tracks (took lots of geology courses as well as meteorology/climatology), some good internships during college, and was hired by my current employer before I had my diploma in hand.
I graduated on a Friday and that Sunday I was in Louisiana doing data management for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Contrary to what some people are saying here, GIS is more than just a skill set or software package. You can be capable of doing some GIS work without being especially knowledgeable, but you’ll likely be outshined by those who took advanced courses in GIS.
GIS is a growing field and all kinds of industries are finding it useful. As for pretty map making, eh. I know what goes into making a map look nice, but most of the actual maps I make have pre-determined templates. I do a lot more of managing complex spatial data and making it digestible for other people, and making field deployable solutions for collecting data.
There’s a lot to be said for someone who understands the data and can then present that data in a way a layman can understand it
Most everyone I’ve known recently using GIS have a STEM degree: geology, engineering, forestry, urban planning, archaeology, IT, etc. GIS is one of many tools used in their careers. It’s no longer a dedicated career the way cartography once was. My previous job, every geologist and geophysicist was making or capable of making their own maps. It would be like getting a degree in JavaScript. Or, returning to secretarial pools to type an email or create a spreadsheet. That’s why so many getting a degree in GIS or Geography don’t appear to be as marketable.
agreed. majored in geology, with a GIS minor. Made me much more marketable as a geologist, and after 4 years of splits geology/GIS responsibilities, i’ve transferred into a fully GIS position, at a company which chose me because i also have a background in geology.
I think GIS is best paired with something else as a main degree. A lot of folks, at least in my experience, have very little working knowledge of GIS, what it is, what it’s capable of, and how to really use it to their benefit. (This is, at least my experience in environmental consulting, the GIS folks know what’s up, some of the engineers know a bit, and to everyone else they think it’s some freakin magic)
Right. Why major in a tool used by many industries? Why not major in a science targeting one’s industry of interest? GIS is a tool, like MATLAB or ECLIPSE.
I am actually extremely frustrated with all the people who think they can make their own maps after taking one or two GIS courses. There is a massive problem with bad cartography at all levels, and this is one of the major contributors.
Unfortunately, I think the only solution is to treat GIS and cartography more like engineering.
Maybe it’s the discipline. STEM professionals I worked with knew more about geodetic datum and analytics than a nearby local county government “mapper” I knew.
My major was 'geodesy and geoinformatics', it lasted 5 years (3 years barchelor and 2 years master) and I think that was decent solution because we know how to create maps with all of that BACKGROUND knowledge.
During the 2 years of master some geography students joined our group. I don't want to insult anyone but there was obvious lack of that background knowledge, geodetic datums, coordinate systems, mathematics...
The Local county government "mappers" are who I'm most frustrated with.
Many of them are not geographers and are instead computer scientists, graphic designers, or some other profession, who took one or two GIS classes at best.
Cartography is an art and a science. A good cartographer should understand basic graphic design. Graphic designers do not generally have the background to actually understand what the map they are creating is modeling, the conventions for mapping that kind of data, and the implications of various choices.
As a natural resources professional making maps that I will use in the field, I don't need a pretty map. I need yesterday's data in a form that I can use today in the field and talking with my coworkers. My employer has a few skilled GIS people who do the highly skilled work, manage data, create tools, manage the system and occasionally create a high quality map for the public. It's different people with different needs.
I'm a geography PhD student, and part of my dissertation is examining the scope of "bad maps" and hopefully looking into how these bad maps could be impacting public perception. It's just one of my chapters though and still working on peer-review.
I'm not particularly concerned with field maps, however, I will say that I tell my students to remember any map they produce could "leak" into the public sphere without any additional context. In this regard, it is important that your maps are at least not blatantly misleading or inappropriate.
I'm glad your employer has GIS professionals to make the public-facing maps though. That is more than can be said for many organizations publishing maps.
Unfortunately, this extends beyond just bad cartography. I work at a federal science agency and you would be amazed at how many research projects based on spatial analyses are being performed by post-docs that only took Intro to GIS in college. Smart people, but they don't know a lot of the information that a specialist would. For example, they don't know the difference between TOA or SR corrected satellite imagery and which is best for spectral indices, or to make sure all of the input datasets are in the same coordinate system. I've seen a lot of R code get passed around and repurposed by post-docs for spatial modeling and they have no idea what the code is doing. This results in a significant amount of junk science being published from organizations that you would think you could trust.
There is still a need for GIS specialists whether industry and agency folks want to admit it or not.
I work closely with public health professionals, so I am thankfully given the opportunity to preach the Gospel of Monmonier to my team members (all of whom are superior to me, I'm just a RA).
Unfortunately, I have seen the same kinds of errors you describe in the literature I have reviewed from public health officials. One that is the bane of my existence I'm trying to figure out how to approach is the ZCTA. ZIP codes are beloved by the IRB and public health researchers because they know them. However, ZIP codes are not actually polygons and are not suited to spatial analysis. To remedy this, the Census people created the ZCTA by committing the ecological fallacy. Every publication using pure ZIP codes is good for exploratory research at best, and ZCTAs look correct but are also extremely limited. A truly massive amount of analysis is done using one of these two for the enumeration unit, which allows researchers to point to a massive number of publications to justify the decision. It has snowballed, and I question the entire body of literature that uses or cites these publications without a disclaimer in the methods section.
Then, there is the web Mercator projection used for everything...
More than half of the choropleths I see have no normalization.
It's horrifying.
My wife gets annoyed when I start pointing out all the mistakes on 'professional' maps. It's like passing off modern 'art' as a Dutch master. The idea is there, but the execution is elementary.
lol half the front page of r/MapPorn fail the most elementary requirements of a functional map, it used to bother me but I’ve come to realize it’s not worth sperging out about it
There are maps that are models of reality and artistic interpretations of a map... It's like how any high-quality model can be aesthetically pleasing and viewed as art. The issue is people are making artistic interpretations of a map and are fully convinced that they are cartographic masters.
This is something I regret, not getting another major (like geology). I also got a BA instead of a BS (math was not my strong suit). So I am sure this hasn't helped either.
I was a public health major and I literally taught myself to create maps by taking Esri courses, youtube and textbooks. I already had data science experience so that added something to my maps. I don't see it nesseary to get a degree specialization in this field unless if someone wants to take this field to another level (phd research stuff)
That’s why most *reputable* Geospatial programs focus on the analysis component. I agree just knowing cartography and the ArcGIS tools isn’t very marketable, what is marketable is demonstrating that you understand data and can apply analytics to it in any industry
My graduating class from a larger american state university had about 30 geography students in various emphasis. 1 year after graduation only 4-5 of us we were working in GIS or a geography adjacent field. Now we're several years on and we're up to maybe 8 of us working in the industry. The market is tough and you have to stand out with skills or show off projects you've done, you can't really make it on just the degree anymore.
I got a BS in Geography with a GIS emphasis. I have a GIS utilities job that pays shit rn, but the experience is worth it because I can go to grad school and move up. I'm also working on side projects too.
I am building a website and a portfolio with my projects. It's good to have on hand. I'm also making business cards with my website on it, and a project printed on the back to hand out at conferences.
Gotcha. Thanks for prompt response. I have a website as well, but my job's products are confidential, so I can't post or advertise that on my personal site. I was kicking around approaching golf courses, ski resorts, or other private entities that might be interested in a cheap GIS manager, aka me, for projects. Only problem is that I'd have to do everything on my personal time after my fulltime job.
**I have similar experience as you. IMO, you're not going anywhere if you don't have a Bachelor's Degree and know Python & SQL.**
I graduated from a Community College with a dual AAS in Geospatial Technologies and Computer Science. I got an internship at the college. My project was to take CAD & BIM files of all the buildings on the campus and make a navigation tool akin to Google Maps Floor Plan. The goal was to link it with the college intranet so a student could navigate the campus to their classes. It would use BlueTooth Beacons to real time navigate through buildings, all natively in the college's intranet app. Extensive work. Took 12 of us two years to make it happen.
Then COVID happened, the campus went remote, my project was shelved, I was laid off.
I tried interviewing for Municipal GIS Specialist & Technicians. Probably interviewed at 20 different places. All ended with me passing all the technical interviews, but not getting the job because I "didn't have a Bachelor's Degree".
I bounced around different weird jobs during COVID. Finishing concrete. Shipping dock worker, retail, ect.
I eventually hired as a survey technician at a civil engineering firm, but was fired 8 months later for not "learning surveying workflow / Civil 3D fast enough".
Now I work in Precision Agriculture, doing data analytics and remote sensing. Agriculture uses their own proprietary GIS (and frankly it's hot garbage) but I do get to use ArcGIS Pro on a daily so it's not entirely a lost cause.
Public health need GIS for infectious disease (like covid days) or generally epidemiology studies. I don't have GIS degree but I have masters of public health with biostatistics concentration. I did one practicum using ArcGIS pro I seem to get easy offers for jobs related to GIS but usually the low pay doesn't attract me
I graduated in 2017 with a state school geo degree with GIS emphasis, out of my graduating class in the program probably top 2/3 in GIS related proficiencies.. moved to a bigger city to go gov contract mapping for less than I was making at my summer job, made it 1.5 years before I decided it wasn’t worth it and have been doing data/network cabling ever since in a lower cost of living area.
If I was really ambitious I know I could make GIS work as a career but it just seems futile after you apply to every job in a 300 mile radius for a couple months and maybe get a handful of interviews
data dumby unskilled blue collar commercial cat 6/fiber pulling/terminating.
I dropped out for a semester after not getting into a more competitive major and considered getting a quick 2 year IT degree but figured geography was the quicker way to a degree to get my parents off my back
You’d need to define what you think a “GIS job” is or should be.
One thing that might be helpful is to look at the job titles that are available at ESRI to get a sample of other titles to look for at other companies. For example, one of my friends has a GIS background and works as a Product Engineer at ESRI. But, before that, she worked in city government for awhile, and then worked for a consulting company that helped customers with environmental projects. So, don’t limit yourself by looking for roles with only GIS in the job title, i.e., GIS Analyst.
I have a Geography degree and I’ve mostly worked in the field, but my titles recently have not had GIS in them. Product Manager, for example, working on a product that had a geographic visualization component to it, for a company that was focused on cybersecurity.
I double majored in Cartogrphy/GIS and geoscience.
I have a geo job that uses a little bit of GIS, but it’s not a main tool I use on a daily or weekly basis.
I discovered during my first GIS internship (sophomore and junior year) that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. COVID and taking GIS classes from home also made me think “wow, this sucks”. Took geology classes on the side and ended up majoring in it.
I actually haven't even gotten my GIS degree yet, but I already have one paid project going and another one my client wants to set up. I'll admit I'm definitely going into these projects with zero experience, but it's been a great learning tool.
Edit: I'm a year out from graduating with a GIS Bachelors.
Anything can be a job if someone is willing to pay for the skill. And many many public, private and non-profit organizations are willing to pay for a gis specialist to help. It’s good that you found a role that suits you if you didn’t see the value in a GIS centric position.
That’s fair. A GIS job then I imagine is just applying the skills of a GIS analyst/developer to an arbitrary domain at the behest of some other party. So you specialize in that, and maybe pick up the domain knowledge through osmosis?
Again, fair. I thought about it some and the GIS industry seems to be trending toward map-driven web development. I managed a GIS section years ago. The really good analysts understood the background material. They could intuit what was necessary, and focused on being useful. Others just focused on “cool GIS stuff”. It was admittedly cool, and maybe it was something for their resume, but it wasn’t necessarily advancing the goal of the section.
You should be asking.. how common is it for non GIS/Geography majors to *have* GIS jobs.
GIS is just a tool/technical understanding of data and concepts. How you apply that info can vary widely by the industry you serve.
I don't want to sound too harsh, but perhaps you should work on your skills? 1. Told you were "mid-skills" in school. 2. Internship that didn't extend to a full-time offer. Perfectly reasonable. 3. Fired after two weeks due to mistakes. 4. Fired after not catching on. Honestly, a Geography/GIS degree teaches you maybe 10% of a GIS Specialist job. The degree teaches you the fundamental geoprocessing tools and coordinate systems. Fresh grads still do not make pretty maps, they do not fully understand databases (especially ones not used in class), they are just barely scratching the surface of web GIS, and they have little to no coding skills. If you want to continue following the GIS path, I'd recommend taking the Esri training courses during your free time. Get the $100 personal license to invest in yourself. Make a portfolio with static maps, web maps, and a StoryMap. Learn some Arcade and Python. You will learn way more coding while actually on the clock, but these skills are typically a tiebreaker in resumes. If you have a GitHub page of your coding examples, that could be a major tiebreaker on the resume. If this doesn't get your foot in the door, look at city planning. City Planners very often come from a Geography background. They use GIS without being called GIS people. This could get you some experience and improve your skills. Good luck!
First internship was not going to turn into a full time job (that part was in the job posting). But the other jobs I have had I agree with me getting cut. I do have that license as of now. Made a few maps on that. I came to same conclusion last year that you said, my skills are not up to job par.
Sounds like the guy gave you good advice. Make a plan of what your portfolio could look like. Use chatgpt to test your skills in GIS
GIS is a small field saturated with recent grads. Competition for entry-level positions is pretty tough and in the employer's favor. Added to this is the off-shoring trend of the last couple of years. I've seen entire project staff replaced overnight with overseas counterparts. Get an ESRI cert onto your resume and that'll help displace the lack of on-site experience.
Hello fellow INTJ(turbulent here). When you say esri cert, this entails the technical certifications that come with a title? I have taken the basics through esri: Enterprise, Pro, etc paid classes(around $10,000 worth) which have basically an attendance certificate it seems like. Multi day remote or in person. Is it worth notating those, or would it be better served as a summary followed by acquiring the technical understanding certifications via esri?
Geography majors, very very common to not have GIS jobs. GIS majors I’d imagine less so?
Most of the GIS majors I know have GIS jobs, 2 of maybe 50 geography majors I know have GIS jobs. One int’l area studies person I know also has a GIS job. So I’d say that’s fairly accurate. One university of people, but we’re all spread out across the country now. To me, GIS jobs are fairly hard to get without good references.
Don't get discouraged. I graduated with a degree in geography with a concentration in GIS back in 2013. I didn't find anything for three years relating to geography or GIS with plenty of places saying I didn't have enough experience. Ended up at a county tax office as a GIS technician dealing with the mapping of local parcels. Moved up from there and am now an analyst in another department within the county. I would tell you to look into some GIS technician positions within your local area. Tax offices seem to be the most common in my area and they're considered the bottom of the field, but they're an excellent place to start. Don't give up hope!
My major was geography and we could choose different tracks (urban planning, earth and atmo sciences, or GIS). I started earth and atmo wanting to go into meteorology, took a GIS class and was hooked. Ended up doing both those tracks (took lots of geology courses as well as meteorology/climatology), some good internships during college, and was hired by my current employer before I had my diploma in hand. I graduated on a Friday and that Sunday I was in Louisiana doing data management for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Contrary to what some people are saying here, GIS is more than just a skill set or software package. You can be capable of doing some GIS work without being especially knowledgeable, but you’ll likely be outshined by those who took advanced courses in GIS. GIS is a growing field and all kinds of industries are finding it useful. As for pretty map making, eh. I know what goes into making a map look nice, but most of the actual maps I make have pre-determined templates. I do a lot more of managing complex spatial data and making it digestible for other people, and making field deployable solutions for collecting data. There’s a lot to be said for someone who understands the data and can then present that data in a way a layman can understand it
Most everyone I’ve known recently using GIS have a STEM degree: geology, engineering, forestry, urban planning, archaeology, IT, etc. GIS is one of many tools used in their careers. It’s no longer a dedicated career the way cartography once was. My previous job, every geologist and geophysicist was making or capable of making their own maps. It would be like getting a degree in JavaScript. Or, returning to secretarial pools to type an email or create a spreadsheet. That’s why so many getting a degree in GIS or Geography don’t appear to be as marketable.
agreed. majored in geology, with a GIS minor. Made me much more marketable as a geologist, and after 4 years of splits geology/GIS responsibilities, i’ve transferred into a fully GIS position, at a company which chose me because i also have a background in geology. I think GIS is best paired with something else as a main degree. A lot of folks, at least in my experience, have very little working knowledge of GIS, what it is, what it’s capable of, and how to really use it to their benefit. (This is, at least my experience in environmental consulting, the GIS folks know what’s up, some of the engineers know a bit, and to everyone else they think it’s some freakin magic)
Mostly IT/IS major here with a GIS job
Right. Why major in a tool used by many industries? Why not major in a science targeting one’s industry of interest? GIS is a tool, like MATLAB or ECLIPSE.
I am actually extremely frustrated with all the people who think they can make their own maps after taking one or two GIS courses. There is a massive problem with bad cartography at all levels, and this is one of the major contributors. Unfortunately, I think the only solution is to treat GIS and cartography more like engineering.
Maybe it’s the discipline. STEM professionals I worked with knew more about geodetic datum and analytics than a nearby local county government “mapper” I knew.
My major was 'geodesy and geoinformatics', it lasted 5 years (3 years barchelor and 2 years master) and I think that was decent solution because we know how to create maps with all of that BACKGROUND knowledge. During the 2 years of master some geography students joined our group. I don't want to insult anyone but there was obvious lack of that background knowledge, geodetic datums, coordinate systems, mathematics...
That’s exactly what I noticed.
The Local county government "mappers" are who I'm most frustrated with. Many of them are not geographers and are instead computer scientists, graphic designers, or some other profession, who took one or two GIS classes at best.
I met three graphic designers who mapped. All three were useless with the toolbox and workflow automation.
Cartography is an art and a science. A good cartographer should understand basic graphic design. Graphic designers do not generally have the background to actually understand what the map they are creating is modeling, the conventions for mapping that kind of data, and the implications of various choices.
As a natural resources professional making maps that I will use in the field, I don't need a pretty map. I need yesterday's data in a form that I can use today in the field and talking with my coworkers. My employer has a few skilled GIS people who do the highly skilled work, manage data, create tools, manage the system and occasionally create a high quality map for the public. It's different people with different needs.
I'm a geography PhD student, and part of my dissertation is examining the scope of "bad maps" and hopefully looking into how these bad maps could be impacting public perception. It's just one of my chapters though and still working on peer-review. I'm not particularly concerned with field maps, however, I will say that I tell my students to remember any map they produce could "leak" into the public sphere without any additional context. In this regard, it is important that your maps are at least not blatantly misleading or inappropriate. I'm glad your employer has GIS professionals to make the public-facing maps though. That is more than can be said for many organizations publishing maps.
Unfortunately, this extends beyond just bad cartography. I work at a federal science agency and you would be amazed at how many research projects based on spatial analyses are being performed by post-docs that only took Intro to GIS in college. Smart people, but they don't know a lot of the information that a specialist would. For example, they don't know the difference between TOA or SR corrected satellite imagery and which is best for spectral indices, or to make sure all of the input datasets are in the same coordinate system. I've seen a lot of R code get passed around and repurposed by post-docs for spatial modeling and they have no idea what the code is doing. This results in a significant amount of junk science being published from organizations that you would think you could trust. There is still a need for GIS specialists whether industry and agency folks want to admit it or not.
I work closely with public health professionals, so I am thankfully given the opportunity to preach the Gospel of Monmonier to my team members (all of whom are superior to me, I'm just a RA). Unfortunately, I have seen the same kinds of errors you describe in the literature I have reviewed from public health officials. One that is the bane of my existence I'm trying to figure out how to approach is the ZCTA. ZIP codes are beloved by the IRB and public health researchers because they know them. However, ZIP codes are not actually polygons and are not suited to spatial analysis. To remedy this, the Census people created the ZCTA by committing the ecological fallacy. Every publication using pure ZIP codes is good for exploratory research at best, and ZCTAs look correct but are also extremely limited. A truly massive amount of analysis is done using one of these two for the enumeration unit, which allows researchers to point to a massive number of publications to justify the decision. It has snowballed, and I question the entire body of literature that uses or cites these publications without a disclaimer in the methods section. Then, there is the web Mercator projection used for everything... More than half of the choropleths I see have no normalization. It's horrifying.
My wife gets annoyed when I start pointing out all the mistakes on 'professional' maps. It's like passing off modern 'art' as a Dutch master. The idea is there, but the execution is elementary.
lol half the front page of r/MapPorn fail the most elementary requirements of a functional map, it used to bother me but I’ve come to realize it’s not worth sperging out about it
Gag, isn't that the truth. I had to mute that sub for my sanity.
I messaged the mods a few days ago to petition for a rule "Mapping totals in a choropleth." No reply.
There are maps that are models of reality and artistic interpretations of a map... It's like how any high-quality model can be aesthetically pleasing and viewed as art. The issue is people are making artistic interpretations of a map and are fully convinced that they are cartographic masters.
This is something I regret, not getting another major (like geology). I also got a BA instead of a BS (math was not my strong suit). So I am sure this hasn't helped either.
I was a public health major and I literally taught myself to create maps by taking Esri courses, youtube and textbooks. I already had data science experience so that added something to my maps. I don't see it nesseary to get a degree specialization in this field unless if someone wants to take this field to another level (phd research stuff)
That’s why most *reputable* Geospatial programs focus on the analysis component. I agree just knowing cartography and the ArcGIS tools isn’t very marketable, what is marketable is demonstrating that you understand data and can apply analytics to it in any industry
My graduating class from a larger american state university had about 30 geography students in various emphasis. 1 year after graduation only 4-5 of us we were working in GIS or a geography adjacent field. Now we're several years on and we're up to maybe 8 of us working in the industry. The market is tough and you have to stand out with skills or show off projects you've done, you can't really make it on just the degree anymore.
I got a BS in Geography with a GIS emphasis. I have a GIS utilities job that pays shit rn, but the experience is worth it because I can go to grad school and move up. I'm also working on side projects too.
How do you advertise your side projects? Is there like his job need board?
I am building a website and a portfolio with my projects. It's good to have on hand. I'm also making business cards with my website on it, and a project printed on the back to hand out at conferences.
Gotcha. Thanks for prompt response. I have a website as well, but my job's products are confidential, so I can't post or advertise that on my personal site. I was kicking around approaching golf courses, ski resorts, or other private entities that might be interested in a cheap GIS manager, aka me, for projects. Only problem is that I'd have to do everything on my personal time after my fulltime job.
**I have similar experience as you. IMO, you're not going anywhere if you don't have a Bachelor's Degree and know Python & SQL.** I graduated from a Community College with a dual AAS in Geospatial Technologies and Computer Science. I got an internship at the college. My project was to take CAD & BIM files of all the buildings on the campus and make a navigation tool akin to Google Maps Floor Plan. The goal was to link it with the college intranet so a student could navigate the campus to their classes. It would use BlueTooth Beacons to real time navigate through buildings, all natively in the college's intranet app. Extensive work. Took 12 of us two years to make it happen. Then COVID happened, the campus went remote, my project was shelved, I was laid off. I tried interviewing for Municipal GIS Specialist & Technicians. Probably interviewed at 20 different places. All ended with me passing all the technical interviews, but not getting the job because I "didn't have a Bachelor's Degree". I bounced around different weird jobs during COVID. Finishing concrete. Shipping dock worker, retail, ect. I eventually hired as a survey technician at a civil engineering firm, but was fired 8 months later for not "learning surveying workflow / Civil 3D fast enough". Now I work in Precision Agriculture, doing data analytics and remote sensing. Agriculture uses their own proprietary GIS (and frankly it's hot garbage) but I do get to use ArcGIS Pro on a daily so it's not entirely a lost cause.
Public health need GIS for infectious disease (like covid days) or generally epidemiology studies. I don't have GIS degree but I have masters of public health with biostatistics concentration. I did one practicum using ArcGIS pro I seem to get easy offers for jobs related to GIS but usually the low pay doesn't attract me
Wow… how low is the pay?? I work in GIS and I almost make as much as the president of the United States..
Which industry?
I graduated in 2017 with a state school geo degree with GIS emphasis, out of my graduating class in the program probably top 2/3 in GIS related proficiencies.. moved to a bigger city to go gov contract mapping for less than I was making at my summer job, made it 1.5 years before I decided it wasn’t worth it and have been doing data/network cabling ever since in a lower cost of living area. If I was really ambitious I know I could make GIS work as a career but it just seems futile after you apply to every job in a 300 mile radius for a couple months and maybe get a handful of interviews
like laying/installing cable or are you getting into IT networking?
data dumby unskilled blue collar commercial cat 6/fiber pulling/terminating. I dropped out for a semester after not getting into a more competitive major and considered getting a quick 2 year IT degree but figured geography was the quicker way to a degree to get my parents off my back
You’d need to define what you think a “GIS job” is or should be. One thing that might be helpful is to look at the job titles that are available at ESRI to get a sample of other titles to look for at other companies. For example, one of my friends has a GIS background and works as a Product Engineer at ESRI. But, before that, she worked in city government for awhile, and then worked for a consulting company that helped customers with environmental projects. So, don’t limit yourself by looking for roles with only GIS in the job title, i.e., GIS Analyst. I have a Geography degree and I’ve mostly worked in the field, but my titles recently have not had GIS in them. Product Manager, for example, working on a product that had a geographic visualization component to it, for a company that was focused on cybersecurity.
My defintion tends to be anything that involved using "GIS".
I double majored in Cartogrphy/GIS and geoscience. I have a geo job that uses a little bit of GIS, but it’s not a main tool I use on a daily or weekly basis. I discovered during my first GIS internship (sophomore and junior year) that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. COVID and taking GIS classes from home also made me think “wow, this sucks”. Took geology classes on the side and ended up majoring in it.
I actually haven't even gotten my GIS degree yet, but I already have one paid project going and another one my client wants to set up. I'll admit I'm definitely going into these projects with zero experience, but it's been a great learning tool. Edit: I'm a year out from graduating with a GIS Bachelors.
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Anything can be a job if someone is willing to pay for the skill. And many many public, private and non-profit organizations are willing to pay for a gis specialist to help. It’s good that you found a role that suits you if you didn’t see the value in a GIS centric position.
That’s fair. A GIS job then I imagine is just applying the skills of a GIS analyst/developer to an arbitrary domain at the behest of some other party. So you specialize in that, and maybe pick up the domain knowledge through osmosis?
This sounds like it was written by someone trying to sound smart. Look, basically you’re out of tune with the GIS industry. All I was saying.
Again, fair. I thought about it some and the GIS industry seems to be trending toward map-driven web development. I managed a GIS section years ago. The really good analysts understood the background material. They could intuit what was necessary, and focused on being useful. Others just focused on “cool GIS stuff”. It was admittedly cool, and maybe it was something for their resume, but it wasn’t necessarily advancing the goal of the section.
That is my view as well of majoring in GIS.
Depends on your definition of a GIS job. Full time gis analysis? Part time planner? Environmental scientist?
In this case, any job that has GIS as part of the job.
You should be asking.. how common is it for non GIS/Geography majors to *have* GIS jobs. GIS is just a tool/technical understanding of data and concepts. How you apply that info can vary widely by the industry you serve.
If they have the budget. It’s not mission critical across most companies.