RE: Strengths tech writers should have to land internships

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>]

 My experience is nearly identical to David's. I think the most valuable
trait to bring to the interview for an internship is a deep desire to learn
in general -- and in particular to learn about one's own strengths in a
real-world technical writing environment.

Bonnie Granat
http://www.GranatEdit.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From:  David Castro
> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 2:42 PM
> To: Richard Lewis
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Strengths tech writers should have to land internships
> 
>
<snip>

> When I say that I did scut work, I'm not exhibiting disdain for it,
> but rather indicating what it was that HP was able to get out of
> having an intern come on board. I freed my mentor up for content
> issues by taking care of the low-level stuff. At the same time, I
> learned how to use FrameMaker, got a great reference on my resume, got
> to try lots of new things (including creating my first web page...this
> was 1995, when the web was very new), and learned how a large
> corporation works. They took me to meetings in which I saw how they
> could be run well or not so well. I got to meet people in different
> departments, and got to listen in to my tech writing mentor as she
> talked to them and negotiated extensions to deadlines, or deadlines
> for document reviews. I learned what the life of a tech writer is
> really like while working there for those 8 months (the internship got
> extended beyond the 3-month requirement).
> 
> I didn't work on content generation while at HP, which I think was
> quite appropriate (I would have been documenting radio frequency
> circuit board designing software, so the likelihood that I could have
> come up to speed enough to accurately write ANY content would have
> been next to nil). Based on my experience in an internship, I would
> say that baseline tool skills, technical aptitude, and *enthusiasm*
> are the most important skills to bring.
> 


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