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Subject:Re: Should students be allowed to post From:Traci Eyer <teyer -at- HOLLY -dot- COLOSTATE -dot- EDU> Date:Fri, 27 Oct 1995 08:26:09 -0600
I'm a student. I have also published and edited for money; I went back to
school at age 29 to learn more and to get the damn piece of paper. In my
mid-twenties, I was a computer animator for one of the top forensic
engineering firms in the country.
I have classes with plenty of other very serious, accomplished writers.
Even the younger (normal aged!) undergraduates in our upper level classes
work very hard; they have to, or they couldn't cut it.
Would this list exclude people like me, simply because I'm a student? Or
maybe only undergraduates? I know graduate students who are both younger
and less experienced than I. You can't weed people out by age, because a
22-year-old here in town in our tech writing program owns or co-owns a
couple of publishing and internet services businesses, and he's certainly
neither immature or flippant about his skills and education.
On the other hand, I have worked with too many "professionals" with
degrees who knew and cared relatively little about their field. Physics
graduates who couldn't do physics, math graduates who didn't know what
the CRC Math Handbook was, and graduates in computer animation who had to
be retrained.
College isn't a phase like puberty, where irresponsible behavior can
pretty well be expected. Sure, there's plenty of college students who go
to college for the wrong reasons, or whose focus changes while their
there. But the rest of us are plenty serious and talented, and just may
have a lot to offer to a list like this. So if you're going to look at
e-mail addresses to find the college students, or check into everyone's
background, you're going to end up excluding people that should be on
this list.
Sorry if this sounds cranky. I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, nd
I've had too many bad experiences lately being shrugged off because
people find out I'm a college student without finding out the more
important stuff about me.
Thanks for letting me speak my mind on this one.
Traci Eyer
teyer -at- holly -dot- colostate -dot- edu
P.S. I turn 31 this Sunday; you're all invited via e-mail!
