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Cartographer Not the Best Job in America?

posted by Satri on Friday April 14, @11:06AM        Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the isn't-it-enough-to-love-what-you-do? dept.

The Cartography blog refers and discuss a CNNMoney article about a jobs survey. From the blog: "In my opinion, this is news as anyone who is one knows that being a cartographer is the best job around. However, CNNMoney has released the results of a survey of 166 jobs and found that, in terms of compensation, cartographers and photgrammatists rank 83rd, smack in the middle." What do you think? Is it hard to find a decent job? Are job conditions ok? Are you happy with the geospatial industry?

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• Physical therapist?

  (Score:2, Interesting)

  by sears (132) <{barry.sears} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday April 14, @09:32PM (#613)
  ( http://www.gix.ca/ )

  I don't know about anywhere else, but here in Northern Ontario, it's impossible to fill jobs those kind of jobs, even more so at the salary you're looking to provide. It's a great job. Definitely better than an actuary or a "Market Research Analyst". I got into GIS by virtue of having geologists for parents, and I couldn't be happier.
• Cartography isn't that great

  (Score:3, Interesting)

  by briancnorton (255) on Monday April 17, @06:49AM (#614)

  I was a thematic cartographer for two years in a top-level shop, and I can say that while it was a good experience, it was very limiting. The creativity that you can express is often very restrained to a specific output format and production style. I am now working the more broad topic of "visualization" and I can do pretty much anything I want.
  • Re:Cartography isn't that great

    (Score:3, Insightful)

    by geognerd (63) on Monday April 17, @10:57AM (#616)

    You need the ability to express creativity and innovate in GIS as well as cartography. I constantly kvetch about my pay (about 35% lower than my peers), but I am free to create new datasets, learn new things, and do research as I please. As long as they're all relevant to my work. I also have the benefits (and disadvantages) of being a one-man operation.
    
    Just recently I noticed a job opening where I could nearly double my pay. However, I didn't apply because I didn't like the job's apparent rigidity in supervision and workload. I probably wouldn't have been able to innovate or do research at that job. Just ho-hum production and printing of parcel maps. No opportunities to use GIS for analysis. Digitizing and printing all day wouldn't make full use of my knowledge and skills.

    [ Parent ]
• Long gone

  (Score:2, Interesting)

  by dkm (446) on Monday April 17, @09:19PM (#622)

  While I got a Ph.D. in Geography, I moved on as soon as I finished because I did not see anything that looked interesting. I went to work for a software startup and have been happly employed ever since.