Re: degrees

[Laura Lemay <lemay -at- DEATH -dot- KALEIDA -dot- COM>]

Against all better judgement, I'll contribute to the degree discussion.
At least I'm not contributing to the will/shall or the password
discussions. :)

I have a tech writing degree.  At the time, there were few tech writing
degrees available, so I wrote my own.  Self-defined major; I don't
recommend it.  I ended up spending most of my time in academic politics
trying to convince the deans for five departments that what I was doing
was unique.  No fun.  Not to mention the fact that university placement
offices don't like dealing with people who don't fit into thier
tight little categories -- I wasn't a writing major, so I coulnd't interview
for the writing jobs, I wasn't a programming major, so I coulnd't
interview for the programming jobs...but anyhow.

When I started working, most of the pubs department treated me like
some kind of curiosity ("look -- there's that woman with the tech
writing degree!"  "OOOOH, Herbert, get a picture!").  In retrospect,
although the degree gave me a head start in the field (I had already
written several projects and as such was one up on many other
entry-level writers), there was nothing unique to my degree that I
coulnd't have learned after a year or two in the Real World.  And I
certainly didn't hold it over anyone's head.  I've worked with programmers,
history majors, actors, experts in medieval poetry, and writers who spent
the first ten years of thier working career juggling octopus (don't ask).
It you can put together instructions that are clear and useable, you
can see a project through to its finality and you are genuinely interested
in the technology you're writing about, we'll get along fine regardless
of your degree or lack thereof.

What bothers me is that there are so few people out there who have those
few simple requirements, degreed or not.  The ratio of bozos to decent
writers seems to be HUGE.  Is it like this in other fields?

Laura, department of silly degrees