Re: Academic careers with/vs. tech writing

[Mark Boyer <boyer -at- OPENMARKET -dot- COM>]

Well I was in your situation 23 years ago, so I guess I can offer a longterm
perspective. It is, of course, only person's point of view.

In the sense that there is a qualitative difference between the academic and
business worlds, that difference is what determines whether an individual who
aimed for the first can adapt to the second. Perhaps it is my experience along
with my natural cycnicism that makes think that a certain hollowness and
dishonesty in each world ultimately boils down to the same thing and vitiates
the difference. Or maybe that's just sophistry too.

What I've come to appreciate as a tech writer is the opportunity to design
books and information, to create something with full control over its form and
content. And I've been lucky enough to parley that into substantive
participation in other areas of products I've been involved with. Does it get
boring now and then? Is it the same satisfaction as plumbing the depths of
Shakespeare and Dickens? Of course not. But then again, the work I do is mine
and requires some real creativity. And I don't have to teach Hamlet to a
roomful of basically uninterested and uninteresting freshmen year after year
after year. I work at my level of interest, not someone else's.

The bottom line for me is that in either world the work is what pays the bills.
One can actually get a decent level of satisfaction in a real job equvalent to
what one is looking for. I've found that the urges for the intellectual life
that I thought could be satisfied only by an academic career are in fact better
satisfied by following my own interests and ideas and reading in my free time
and sharing them with others whose own inclinations led them in the same
direction. I read more than I ever did when I was teaching. I read a wider
variety of material. And I enjoy it more. A real-world job also allows me to
interact with some quite interesting and intellectually acute adults.

After23 years I think I made the right decision. The hollowness (and relative
poverty, financially speaking) I was feeling about academia I believe were
correct. The phrase "real world" actually means something. And having a real
job doesn't obviate the chance for a fulfilling intellectual life. In may ways,
it opens you up to a freer one.


Mark Boyer
Director of User Interface and Information Engineering
Open Market, Inc.

617.949.7367
From: Harrison Brace <hbrace -at- AIMQUEST -dot- COM>, on 9/3/97 5:23 PM:
I've been poking around the archive for this list, and I see that there was
quite an active discussion about tech writing carriers for people
originally bound for academia. I've tried to get in touch with some of the
people who participated in that discussion, but as it occurred quite some
time ago, people's e-mail addresses have changed and I've had no luck. I
also have a couple of questions not covered in what I found of the original
discussion.

I was completing my Ph.D. at Stanford in comparative literature but found
my life increasing complicated by the near-impossibility of living in the
bay area on a grad student's stipend (although I know of course I was lucky
just to have one). As I had jobs before doing tech writing (contract and
over the summers), I finally decided this year to take a full-time job as a
tech writer. I'd been feeling dispirited about academia and was tired of
starving.

Though I don't have any problems doing the work -- I already had a fair
amount of experience and have always been a major techo-phile - I'm finding
the transition a bit rough at times. Will the work be satisfying in the
long run? What is the career path for a tech writer? It's nice work now,
but should I just go out and get some kind of engineering degree as well?
Or move to marketing?

I've had 9 to 5 jobs before, but this feels different. The next year may
well determine what I do with the rest of my life.

I'd love to hear advice from any of you out there who have made or are
contemplating this switch. I could still complete my dissertation in my
"spare time" and go on the academic job market, but, well, the clock is
ticking.

Thanks again,

Harrison Brace
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