3 ms·
It's just a tool in the toolkit. I dropped my entire comp-sci major when I realized I couldn't bear even the first of two required technical writing courses. I
by abathur 3y ago
It's just a tool in the toolkit.
I dropped my entire comp-sci major when I realized I couldn't bear even the first of two required technical writing courses. It was wringing all of the joy out of something I loved.
Later, newswriting was... maybe not quite "fun", but I did enjoy the challenge of remaining creative within the form while keeping a demanding instructor happy.
Screenwriting was similar. It's not a form I really ~enjoy writing in, but I think learning to write from that perspective also leaves you with something good for the kit.
- quickthrower2 3y agoThat seems like a questionable reason to ditch CS to me. Was it really that bad to do the technical writing courses?
- cratermoon 3y agoYes, having done all kinds of styles, I can see wanting to avoid technical writing. It's a highly rigid form, with lots of rules about how to arrange information. Sometimes just the tools are enough to make you want to quit: I'm looking at you (La)TeX.
- abathur 3y agoThanks for questioning my reasons (anonymously). As such things tend to be, it was the last straw. I was an angry, shy, lonely young person. I didn't know it at the time, but I was 1 year in to 6 years of ~writing-my-way-out of the worst two of those. I came to school thinking I'd study writing or programming. I started with the one likely to pay more to please my dad, but only found one of the intro CS projects remotely engaging. Yes; we were sitting in technical writing (second semester) discussing what we'd done for the first assignment and why. Through the lens of the only thing that I really found engaging (and catharctic, and joyful) in high school, I could see that my heart wasn't in it. Any of it. (I would later return to programming through art projects.)