Louisiana’s only four year geomatics program, located at Nicholls State University, receives a $100,000 donation.

The Nicholls Geomatics program received a $100,000 donation from the Louisiana Society of Professional Surveyors (LSPS) to hire a new faculty member. 

“We will use that money to hire a fourth faculty that will help us with the courses and research,” said Nicholls Department Head of Applied Sciences Dr. Esra Tekdal Yilmaz.

Yilmaz is also an associate professor of the Geomatics program. She hopes that the LSPS donation will bring in more students to the Geomatics program at Nicholls. 

LSPS offers credit hours to students for PhDs after they pass their Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam.  

Nicholls has the only four year program in the state accredited by ABET. The main part of the Geomatics program is teaching students about Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAV) and drones to study the Earth. Though, they also teach students about landform and spatial data. Showing them how data is recorded, measured, stored, processed, and retrieved. 

On the Geomatics page, it says that their mission involves developing Geomatic professionals, which includes land surveyors, construction surveyors, mappers, and planners. They say this is the core of what is needed to rebuild coastal Louisiana. 

Yilmaz says that she can guarantee students who join the Geomatics program that they will have at least two job offers before they graduate. 

“The profession needs young people,” Yilmaz stated. “I can guarantee that they will get a good paying job if they graduate from here.” 

If a student is interested in learning more about the Geomatics program at Nicholls, visit https://www.nicholls.edu/applied-sciences/.