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> >I have to wonder at the logic of automatically throwing someone in the
> >reject pile simply because they chose to learn to be a technical writer.
> >I'm interested in lots of things, and it would have been silly for me to
> >attempt to get degrees in all of them. Or to narrow my scope by only
> >picking one of them. If I were following Mark's advice, I would have to
> >get a medical degree because of my interest in medicine, a degree in
> >history because of my interest in history, degrees in criminology and
> >forensics and religion and art and music and... you get the idea.
>
> The difference is that studying history or psychology gives you a way of
> looking at the world. The lasting value of a traditional liberal arts
> college major is not the book learning -- when was the Battle of 1812-- but
> the fundamental question you ask in understanding the world around you.
>
> Whereas a technical writing major, like any professional training, teaches
> how to do something. It's akin to medical school (or any trade school),
> not an undergrad biology major.
I would choose someone who has studied audience analysis, communication
and writing styles, information distribution media, public speaking, copy
editing, project management, and so on (all topics I studied as a tech.
writing major) over someone who got a history degree, found that there's
no work for people with history degrees, discovered that there is money
in technical writing, and said "Hey, I know how to write. How difficult
could technical writing be?"
