RE: Texas Tech U/ tech writer experience....

["George Mena" <George -dot- Mena -at- esstech -dot- com>]

Tom Green wrote: " I don't see how it will help you get a better writing job", referring to his four year degree.

A four-year degree not mattering in this business? I think not.

I remember my first-ever tech writing job. Paid $5.50 an hour to start back in 1981, and I had no flight line experience from the USAF to help me command a higher starting rate. What I did have was my BA in Journalism and some articles I'd written for the hometown rag while I was getting my degree.

One of my first -- and, to this day, still most vivid -- memories of that first job was my overhearing a discussion between my TW lead and one of the young women who was working as a proofreader. She'd been there for awhile, and had always sought a TW position like the one I had just landed -- within the company. At one point, she asked my lead "How come he (meaning me) got the job, and I didn't?"

His answer was brutally succinct: "He's got the piece of paper."

Later that night, I told this story to my folks, as I was still living at home at the time. After I shared it with them, my dad, then a high school business teacher, said to me "Now you know why we pushed you the way we did."

H. Rap Brown once said "Burn, baby, burn." But wouldn't you know it, the teaching world back then turned it around to "Earn, baby, earn!"

Earth Wind & Fire calls it "Yearnin' Learnin'."

Remember that your education can never be taken from you, now that you have it. :D

Later,

George