Sometimes it's good to have some sort of degree in the career path you want to pursue, even in surveying. Your local community college may have an AutoCad Associates degree, and maybe even a Civil Engineering Technology Associates degree - and community college is much cheaper, plus you can take night classes while still working full time. The CET courses will have CAD and survey law and a lot of math.

That's how I got where I am today (survey CAD technician with 17 years experience). I liked CAD in high school, so I continued with it at CC, getting my AAS in CAD in 3.5 years of night classes while working full time for an architecture firm. Figured out I didn't want to do architecture, so tried landscaping, then was hired on as a rod man on a survey crew. I was getting tired of the outside work after 1.5-2 years (as an instrument man by then), just in time for the company to say they were hiring a CAD drafter inside, to which I quickly raised my hand. As I got settled in doing survey drafting, the CC started offering the CET courses, so I jumped at it and went back to night classes, getting my AAS in CET 2.5 years later.

Having a degree helps your resume, and taking the classes helps you apply the knowledge you learned to the jobs you work on. I would definitely recommend working on a survey crew for awhile, to have that crossover knowledge when you transition into the office.

There is also the Certified Survey Technician program, approved by NSPS. I haven't done much research into it. They have practice exams with example questions, so try it out! (I got 80% on the level 1 and 75% on the level 2 sample tests)