Re: Hostility towards STC

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

Another note on certification:

A degree from medical school entitles a person to be addressed as 
Doctor. You can put on a white coat and run around the hospital and see 
patients and look at charts and all kinds of cool stuff. But it takes 
some number of years as an intern, resident, whatever, and then 
undergoing some sort of rigorous testing or reviewing process (I don't 
pretend to know the details) before you really _are_ a doctor, entitled 
to hang out your own shingle and treat patients without someone else 
supervising you.

I would never suggest that certification be a requirement for an entry 
level tech writing gig--or really for any tech writing gig. I don't see 
it as being useful for keeping people out of jobs. I just see it as 
something you take to your current employer and use to leverage a better 
assignment, a raise, more authority, ....

Certification, if it is ever to exist in the field, should be a way of 
demonstrating that you _are_ experienced, not a way to _get_ experience.

Dick

kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com wrote: