A surveyor-in-training is the intern credential a state licensing board issues to people who have passed the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam, paired with whatever education and experience the state adds — the training stage between qualifying education and the licensed professional surveyor.
States name it LSIT, SIT, LSI, PLSIT or Surveyor Intern, and each board writes its own rules for the credential.
At a firm, an LSIT does supervised field and office surveying work while accruing the experience the professional license requires.
What does LSIT / SIT mean?
LSIT stands for Land Surveyor-in-Training.
The initials mark the intern stage of land surveying licensure — past the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam, working under supervision toward the professional license — the shape the NCEES Model Law gives the stage, with each state arranging its own details around it.
The NCEES Model Law — NCEES's model, not itself any state's law — calls this step the surveyor intern.
Under it, intern certification requires qualifying education — an ABET-accredited surveying bachelor's, a related bachelor's with 30 or more semester hours of core surveying topics, or education meeting the NCEES Surveying Education Standard — plus a passed FS exam.
State boards name the stage differently, and the differences show up on applications and job postings:
- California titles the stage "Land Surveyor-in-Training" (LSIT), as does Washington ("land-surveyor-in-training").
- Illinois statute titles the intern a "Surveyor Intern" ("S.I.").
- Missouri renamed the credential from "Land Surveyor-in-Training" to "Land Surveyor-Intern" (LSI), effective August 28, 2022 under HB 2149.
- Tennessee issues a "Professional Land Surveyor in Training" (PLSIT) certificate.
- Texas issues a "Surveyor-in-Training" (SIT) certification alongside its Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS) registration and its Licensed State Land Surveyor (LSLS) license.
- Oregon enrolls the stage as a "Land Surveying Intern" (LSI), someone enrolled by the board after passing the fundamentals of land surveying exam.
- New York issues no LSIT or SIT certificate; its intern step is an "intern land surveyor" identification card.
- Massachusetts awards a "Surveyor-in-Training" (SIT) certificate that is optional rather than required for licensure.
Surveyor-in-training also works as a job title, not just a credential — which is why this page treats surveyor-in-training as a career.
The certificate's own mechanics belong to the licensing process each board runs.
Titles and rules are the board's, and they change
What does a surveyor-in-training do at a firm?
An LSIT touches both halves of the work.
In the field that can mean setting up on control, measuring, keeping field notes and collecting data alongside a crew.
In the office it can mean reducing and checking data, drafting, records research, and preparing calculations, legal descriptions and plats for a licensed surveyor's review.
What your board will count toward licensure shapes which of those tasks matter.
Texas requires SIT experience to be obtained under the direction of one or more RPLSs and to be in boundary surveying and boundary determination only, so counted Texas years are boundary years.
Illinois requires a deliberate mix: field boundary, PLSS and subdivision survey work must make up between 25% and 50% of an applicant's counted experience, and the rest must be office work such as records research, calculations, legal descriptions and plats.
The practical lesson for a job seeker is to ask how a firm's LSIT work maps to your own state's counted-experience rules.
The same job title can build very different licensure applications in different states.
How do you become an LSIT?
The NCEES Model Law sketches the baseline it sets: qualifying surveying education plus a passed FS exam, then an application to the board.
Texas spells out the sequencing — you must pass the FS before applying for the SIT, and the certificate is issued only after the FS is passed and the application is approved.
Confirm your state's education route
The Model Law's options are an ABET-accredited surveying bachelor's, a related bachelor's with 30 or more semester hours of core surveying topics, or education meeting the NCEES Surveying Education Standard. Your board's own route list controls.Pass the NCEES FS exam
Texas requires the FS before the SIT application, and issues the certificate only after both the exam and the application clear.Apply to your state board
Texas asks SIT applicants for at least three references from an RPLS or LSLS, transcripts and, for most routes, an approved course checklist. Your board's own application guide lists the proof it wants.Start accruing experience your board will count
Texas requires SIT experience to be boundary surveying under an RPLS's direction; Illinois wants a field-and-office mix. Keep the licensed surveyor supervising you verifying your time as you go.
The routes into the stage vary more than the exam does.
Missouri dropped its education and experience prerequisites for intern enrollment: since January 1, 2024, anyone who is a high school graduate or holds a GED and passes the board-required exam — the NCEES FS — can enroll as a Land Surveyor-Intern.
Texas lists five SIT routes, from a surveying bachelor's degree down to a high school diploma plus 4 years of experience with evidence of self-education in surveying.
Where a route requires experience, it must be in delegated responsible charge as a subordinate to an RPLS.
Massachusetts runs the sequence in reverse: its optional SIT certificate requires experience before you can hold it.
The combination is a passed FS plus either the degree-route education and 2 years of experience (1 in responsible charge under a PLS), or the 60-credit education and 4 years (2 in responsible charge).
Oregon removes the pressure to enroll early: its board says LSI enrollment is not required to start gaining surveying experience, so an Oregon technician can build experience first and enroll when it makes sense.
Application requirements and forms belong to each board and change.
Read your board's current application guide before you schedule the FS exam or file anything.
What can an LSIT legally do and not do?
The intern credential is not a license.
The NCEES Model Law states plainly that a surveyor intern enrollment document does not authorize the holder to practice as a professional surveyor.
State boards say the same in their own words.
Tennessee describes its PLSIT as a special designation that is not a license to practice: it allows the holder to perform land surveying duties while under the direct supervision of a licensed PLS.
Oregon draws two bright lines for its Land Surveying Intern: practice only under a licensee's direct supervision, and no signing or sealing documents.
Oregon's board adds that interns may not hold themselves out as professional engineers or professional land surveyors.
That division defines the job.
The intern side is the supervised work — measuring, data collection, calculations, drafting and records research.
Texas requires its counted SIT experience to be gained in delegated responsible charge as a subordinate to an RPLS.
The licensee side is responsibility for the work: signing, sealing and the professional judgments behind them.
Under the Model Law, the practice of surveying includes determining the position of, establishing or replacing any survey monument.
Since the intern enrollment document does not authorize practice as a professional surveyor, monument work is part of the supervised surveying an intern does, not work an intern takes on alone.
Scope of practice is the board's call
How long do people stay LSIT before PLS?
There is no fixed length.
The clock is your state's experience requirement for the professional license and how quickly your work qualifies under it.
The NCEES Model Law's benchmark is 4 years of progressive surveying experience on top of the qualifying degree; an acceptable master's in surveying lowers it to 3 years.
That is the model, not any state's rule — boards set their own numbers.
BLS frames the stage from the job side: entry-level surveyors often work under a licensed surveyor for several years before qualifying for a license, and some begin as surveying technicians and license after many years of experience.
Requirements vary by state.
Texas puts a floor under the stage.
Since September 1, 2025, it has required RPLS applicants to hold an SIT certificate and pass the NCEES PS exam.
Applicants must also show at least 2 years of experience as an SIT in delegated responsible charge, along with a degree that included at least 32 semester hours of board-accepted courses.
Illinois requires at least 4 years of responsible-charge experience, and the clock starts only after the qualifying degree is conferred — so in Illinois the counted clock starts at graduation rather than during school.
The credential itself can hold its own clock.
A Texas SIT certificate is valid for 8 years and renewable for further 8-year periods on proof of 32 hours of board-approved coursework or continuing education; Illinois' surveyor intern license does not expire.
Tennessee makes the stage do double duty: PLSIT-period experience counts toward the PLS requirement, and the PLSIT is a prerequisite for licensure by exam.
The stage ends at the licensure application.
NCEES describes the most common path to licensure as including the FS, the PS and a state-specific exam, and notes that many states provide additional paths — which exams and experience your board accepts is its own call.
Where to find LSIT jobs
Look for LSIT roles wherever surveying work happens: land surveying firms, survey departments inside civil and geospatial engineering firms, contractors running layout crews, utilities, and public employers such as state DOTs, counties and federal agencies.
Search on more than one title.
LSIT, SIT, surveyor in training and land surveyor in training all describe this stage, and each state's own initials — Missouri's LSI, Tennessee's PLSIT — are worth adding to your searches too.
SurveyorHires lists surveyor-in-training as its own role alongside the licensed and crew roles.
Browse current surveyor-in-training jobs, and read each posting against your own state's rules — Texas, for example, counts SIT experience in boundary surveying and boundary determination only, as described above.
Hiring rather than job hunting?
Survey firms, civil and geospatial engineering firms, contractors and agencies can post a surveying job on SurveyorHires and put the opening in front of people at exactly this stage of licensure.
Career information, not legal or licensing advice. Intern titles, routes and scope-of-practice rules are set by each state's licensing board — confirm the current requirements with your board before you apply, sign or accept a role.