Oddly enough, I was the opposite case. By my reckoning, I was the first student at my small liberal arts college to submit a word processed paper. It was before

Oddly enough, I was the opposite case. By my reckoning, I was the first student at my small liberal arts college to submit a word processed paper. It was before most of the professors had started using word processing themselves. The ability to bypass a lot of the mechanical effort of writing a paper made the process easy for me, and doing it a lot probably made me a better (or at least quicker) writer. For instance it also improved my handwritten "blue book" exams. Writing was easier than studying for me. For this reason, outside of my math & science majors, I chose exclusively courses where the grade was based on written work. But likewise, I wasn't in college to get an empty credential. I already had a marketable skill -- programming. Learning was fun, but I was also conscious of the fact that I didn't want to waste my parents' money. The writing has affected my career: My work involves not necessarily writing papers, but certainly communicating ideas and knowledge to other people, including non-specialists.