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I am considering this field. I am in college. I will be a sophomore this fall. I took 4 English classes so far and have been successful in all of them. I heard lots of good things about the field (like 15% job growth and $60,000 average bay) but I also heard some bad things (like no respect, most technical writers are contractors and they are the first ones to be fired if the company is in trouble). Is this a good field or no?
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It can be a good field, especially if it's what you like to do. Keep in mind that salary or whatever others think isn't important, it's what makes you happy, and where/how you picture yourself in the future.
I can't speak for the career overall, but in Information Technology, technical writing skills are often times required of the developers, engineers, and business analysts. Technical documentation for projects is often times put together by these roles, who hardly ever depend on Technical Writers, Human Factors Engineers, or Designers - and main reason being time/cost savings.
I also considered going into technical writing, since unlike most, I actually enjoyed the subject in school. I didn't, because I was convinced it be a boring career in the long term for me (I'm more of a meeting and public speaking type person), so I went into IT with a business focus instead. My current employer decided to hire me as an engineer/analyst because I understood technical writing (amongst other things). I use my tech writing skills very often, even though it's not my main task.
My advice, and if possible, would be that you try to double major - it will payoff in the long term, but most importantly is that you do what makes you happy - there's no point in majoring in something that will make you $100K a year if you'll be unhappy. << GO BACK to questions
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