Re: Internships (was: Breaking into the tech writing job market)

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

I'd say either neither or #2.

When I was in my senior year of the mechanical engineering program,
a quick look at my grades (3's in tech subjects, straight 4's across the
board in humanities) and the ease with which I was usually able to
crank out "A" papers had me interested in technical writing.  I took two
semesters of tech writing courses (which was about two semesters
more than my classmates took), but when the on-campus interviewers
arrived I discovered that there were no openings in technical writing at
any of them, and eventually I ended up taking a job as a jr mechanical
engineer.  In those days the "internship" was that every entry-level
engineering hire spent a year on the drafting board, first revising and
then creating design and manufacturing drawings for the experienced
engineers.  In my case, it also included editing other engineer's writing
once the powers that be saw my onw.  It was not until almost twenty 
years of working as design and test engineering (which turned out to 
be about 99% writing of test plans, procedures and reports wrapped 
around a few days a month of blowing things up) that I transitioned to 
a completely different industry by way of a "research engineer" position 
at a semiconductor company whose experience with non-technical tech 
writers had been unsatisfactory.  The rest is history, whether better or 
worse for the profession of technical writing. :)

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jones, Donna" <DJones -at- zebra -dot- com>

I think this calls for an informal poll: 

- How many of you who actually started out wanting to be a tech writer
began as a tech writing intern?

- How many of you who started out as something else were interns?


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