Re: Tech Writing Curriculum

[Michael Oboryshko <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

All the courses everone else is suggesting sound good. But
here's a couple of ideas I wish my school had thought of:

Above all, try to ground the curriculum in job-market reality.
This is easier than it sounds: Go to the major job boards and
find out what skills employers are actually looking for. Then
make sure you are teaching those skills. Otherwise your
graduates will be floundering for the first year or two as they
try to find jobs they don't have skills for for, and try to
acquire those skills on the job (Been there, done that, couldn't
afford the T-shirt).

Don't cater solely to the needs of your school's local giant
corporate sponsor (every school seems to have one). Most of your
students aren't going to work there.

If you are a student, take some responsibility yourself -
research the job market and demand that your school offer
marketable skills. 

Call a few alums and ask if they are actually using any skills
they learned in school. Ask them what courses they wish they had
taken, and which ones were a waste of time. 

Form alliances with lots of other departments; offer your
students the opportunity to work as volunteer tech writers on 
high-end graduate projects (physics, biology, chip design,
database performance, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc.) 
Let students get their hands dirty in the sciences and build
real portfolios. Don't let students write on trivial or made-up
topics.

Don't shy away from teaching software tools. I suspect a lot of
schools don't teach tools because (a) they are too cheap to pay
for the licenses or (b) they are making a LOT of money teaching
the tools at night to corporate Continuing Ed students.

Require every student to assemble a PC, install the OS and
applications, and connect it to the campus network themselves
(in a proctored room!) 

Regards,
Mike O.

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