I think what's important is having an instructor who is actually a practitioner. If you take a writing class with a mediocre instructor, or if such a class is r

I think what's important is having an instructor who is actually a practitioner. If you take a writing class with a mediocre instructor, or if such a class is required, then people just worry about grades and how to turn that B+ into an A by cracking the professor's prejudices/tastes. There's an attribute of people that the best term I can come up for is the "give-a-shit gene." It's the tendency to care too much about the intrinsic quality of the work you produce, rather than its reception or where it fits in. Like implementing great code for an employer you hate on a project that's going to fail, or putting in all the effort on a group project in school while others slack off just because you want to have produced something good. This is usually more of a weakness than a strength in most situations. But to be a good writer, you have to genuinely give a shit about it. I've found a lot of the people I go to school with don't really give a shit about anything, so long as they get the grades or points or whatever they're being judged on.