I agree -- it seems like it's easy to get a degree without being challenged in writing. I remember 3 writing teachers that challenged me, giving me mediocre/ba

I agree -- it seems like it's easy to get a degree without being challenged in writing. I remember 3 writing teachers that challenged me, giving me mediocre/bad grades, and in retrospect I appreciate that. But I think good writing requires a bit of empathy, and that's something that's hard to teach. Most bad technical writing I see fails to define the terms it uses (or uses them sloppily). That's a failure of empathy -- I know this word so I assume everyone else does. I know what I mean by "design" so I assume everyone else does. Another way to phrase it is the "curse of knowledge". Once people have some knowledge, it's hard for them to imagine that somebody else doesn't have it. Without that imagination, you can't write about clearly. And a lot of the times people don't believe a claim is true because of "reasoning". They believe it because they heard someone they trust say it, or it was repeated on TV or online until it stuck. (I don't claim to be exempt from that, but I can reflect on whether I have direct experience or it’s hearsay.)