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Subject:Re: Grad education for tech writers From:GM Vick <gmv -at- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 12 Aug 1998 20:19:21 -0700
Seconding the "school teaches you theory, jobs give you experience"
trend, I vote for working for a few years between undergrad and grad
school regardless of your field of study. I didn't and regret stalling
the education I would have gotten from a real job in those early years.
To kill two birds with one stone, My B.A. is a double in English Lit and
Philosophy; My M.A. is Environmental Management (this indicates a drifting
period of my life). I always wanted to work in publishing but didn't want
to leave the western U.S., so after grad school begged and pleaded my way
into this business unit of my company as a springboard into the division
of this company that publishes environmental research materials. The
environmental division was disbanded two months after I arrived, but I
stayed with my eye on the technical documentation group.
They have very stringent requirements for who can transfer into that unit,
so I got into tech writing through months of begging and pleading that I
be allowed to do it along with my other job duties. Every time they
increase my other job duties/salary, I have to fight again to keep my tech
writing duties. As the job evolves, more and more of the tech writing
gets done after hours in order to keep it. They like my tech writing work,
but they want my future to be an increasing management role with this
business unit and they regard the tech writing as something anyone could
do. I see my future in tech writing. In the meantime I'm getting a crash
course in software development and management skills and I'm grateful for
it.
I'm 2.5 years away from qualifying for the technical documentation group,
on top of that pesky requirement that I find time/money to develop
proficiency in Frame and RoboHelp. If I'd skipped grad school and found
this company first, I might have been there by now. Then again, I might
have missed some of the diversity of job skills that I've acquired in the
past two years.
