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Barry replies, yea, I'll take a stab at it Johnny. When I was working at a
different company there was this woman who was a pretty good writer, but she
did not have any background in technical writing. She decided she wanted to
take a whack at technical writing, but the powers-that-be wanted her to take
some classes.
There is this college here in Portland, Portland Community College, where
you can get a writing certificate. In her case she only needed to take 4
10-week classes (12-credits), and all of them were offered online, and I
think she took all of them concurrently.
The result was that after 10-weeks - bam! She was a Technical Writer I.
The Point? Not everybody who takes a certificate class goes into the class
with zero knowledge. Some people take the certificate to prove what they
already know.
P.S. She proved to be a valuable asset to the company as a technical writer.
Regards,
Barry Kieffer
Senior Technical Writer
ADC Telecommunications
Portland, OR
503.350.6072
barry_kieffer -at- adc -dot- com
Johnny Brown wrote: <snip>
Well the concencus so far is these schools do not produce competent writers
and that the people who are churned out after 4-6 weeks are being
ripped-off.
Is there anyone out there who can defend their use? </snip>