Back to School: Advice from a Tech Comm Master's Student

Ben — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:07:34 +0000

Guest post by Peggy Harvey.

In today’s world of technology changing in the blink of an eye, ongoing professional development isn’t an option for technical communicators, it’s a requirement. Over the past decade the field of technical communication has grown and gained more respect as a legitimate profession, and the complexities of the job and skill base required of technical communicators have also increased. Some of what’s new we can learn on the job—if we have a job—but sometimes we need to obtain the skills to stay vital in other ways.

When it comes to professional development in tech comm there are a lot of options. If you’re gainfully employed, enjoying what you do, and just need to brush up on the latest tool, then probably just a training seminar or a short online class is all you need. But if you’re not employed, or employed in a different capacity than you’d like to be, then you might want to consider a bigger educational commitment to make yourself more marketable as a technical communicator in today’s world.

In 2008 I stepped out of the working world to go back to school to earn my master’s degree in technical communication. While I’d started my career as a technical writer in a software development environment, I’d changed roles along the way, and by 2008 I was wondering how I’d gotten on the train I was on and, more importantly, how I could get off of it. I decided earning an advanced degree was the right decision for me, so in January, 2009, I took the plunge and started graduate school as a full-time student.

Making the Decision

If you’re thinking about going back to school to earn an advanced degree a few things you should consider are:

What is my financial situation? If you’ll be paying for your education yourself this is obviously one of the first things to consider. Even at a state school, graduate school is expensive (trust me). If you do like I did and go full-time you’ll need to make sure you can do without an income during that time.
Why do I want to go back to school? Or, put another way, what do I want the end result to be? In May, 2008, when I was first looking into my program, I sat in my advisor-to-be’s office and told him I wanted “to catch up with the field of tech comm.” Throughout the program I never lost sight of that goal. (Along with the goal of wanting to get not just any job, but a good job as a technical communicator when I was done.)
Do I have the determination it will take? Whether you’re going full-time or part-time and taking a class or two at a time while you work, graduate school is no small commitment. Make sure you understand that before you start—and it will still probably be different than you think.

Getting the Most Out of School

Once you’ve decided to go back to school I highly recommend you make the most out of your time as a student. Keep in mind that an academic program is just that: academic. Academic programs are good at teaching you how to think but they don’t always provide all of the practical skills technical communicators need, such as tools knowledge or authoring techniques. Augmenting your education with practical opportunities will make you a more well-rounded technical communicator (and better job candidate) in the long run.

Here are some ways I’ve made the most of my experience as a tech comm student:

Get what you want out of the program—don’t let it define you. When I had to select a book to review in a theory class I chose Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation rather than something more theoretical. For my final project in the same class I explored the idea of user-generated content and highlighted Adobe Community Help. For my capstone project, I put together a Help system for a product that didn’t have one. Selecting practical project topics whenever the opportunity presented itself made my academic program much more meaningful to me.
Take advantage of student discounts. No, I don’t mean movie tickets and Disneyland (although those are good, too), I mean discounts to professional societies. Most professional organizations, including STC, SIGDOC, and UPA, offer membership discounts to students. While you can, take advantage of the opportunity to join organizations like STC at the discounted rate.
Get involved in student or local professional chapters. If you have a student STC chapter at your school, seek out the faculty advisor and be a part of it. Or get involved with the local professional chapter. My local STC chapter welcomed my input and was glad to have me at meetings. We now have two student members on our Administrative Council.
Participate in professional events. Over the course of my program I attended a conference on DITA that was held on my school’s campus; listened to webinars on FrameMaker and SEO put on by my local STC chapter; and attended the 2010 STC Summit in Dallas (taking advantage of the discounted student registration rate).
Network, network, network. Start networking early, before you really need to. Saying you’re a student is a lot less threatening to people than when your focus is on finding a job. Start building relationships at the beginning; later, when you are looking for a job, you’ll be amazed at what the fruits of your labors may bring.

Peggy Harvey is currently wrapping up her M.S. in Technical Communication at North Carolina State University, graduating from the program in December. She serves as Treasurer and Membership Manager for the STC Carolina Chapter and is an active member of the technical communication community. After a two-year hiatus from corporate America she has begun her post-education job search and expects to re-enter the working world as a practicing technical communicator soon. You can reach her at peggy(at)connectingtocontent.com or follow her on Twitter.

Flickr photo credit: bruinshorty, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruinshorty/3873037675/.

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Twitter as a Professional Development Tool

Ben — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:14:31 +0000

Twitter has different uses for different people. For me, it’s primarily a professional development tool.

I follow a number of technical writers. I also follow the #techcomm hashtag. I keep Twitter open while I work (to this point, we’re allowed to do so). When someone I follow posts a link on a subject that I’m interested in, or an interesting link is posted to the #techcomm tag, I copy the link to my tasks list in Gmail with a few words from the person’s tweet so that I remember what it’s about.

I usually don’t follow these links while at work for a couple of reasons. First, I’m in the middle of working and don’t want to derail myself by clicking the link; second, the links are typically shortened, and I have no way of knowing where they’ll go (at least not with Twhirl, the Twitter client I’m using). I don’t want to follow a shortened link to a questionable site at work, so I leave them for reading on my personal machine at home so I’m not taking any professional risks.

It is a bit annoying, though, when you’re following a hashtag, and after one person tweets with that hashtag, a bunch of other people retweet. Then you get a broken record clogging things up. But that’s the price of following a hashtag, I suppose.

Out of the people I follow, @dmnguys is the most prolific poster of links to tech comm information and related subjects, such as user experience design and usability. Thanks, Scott and Aaron. I don’t read everything, but you give me a good variety to choose from.