Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Writing, at a competent level (I'm not talking about award winning literature), is largely an issue of practice. Yes, you do get some practice in University, but it's hardly an efficient use of time, if better writing is your goal. You get much better practice on the job. Once again, more of a trades-like approach would be more efficient.
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Nope.
If you practice all the time but your habits are awful, you're simply reinforcing bad writing skills. You need someone to tell you what you're doing wrong, and that usually requires a formal education environment. Employers are certainly not going to have a training course within the company. Professional communication skills are pre-requisites for any career.
I teach at a liberal arts university and our mantra is to have them do a LOT of writing assignments (along with formal presentation assignments) to prepare them properly for life after college. This is embedded in the core curricula so they cannot avoid learning these skills. Even with large amounts of practice and regular feedback and development of writing skills in these core classes, some students still struggle to write well when they leave school because the bulk of their written interactions are not formal papers.
We're fighting a massive uphill battle these days because of the informal nature of most written communication in the culture. Don't even get me started on spelling and grammar. I often see students come to college with basic writing mechanics that are worse than junior high level. Of course, this is a uniquely American problem because of the wildly inconsistent levels of education from county to county, never mind state to state.
I can only imagine how bad the basic communication skills for these young people would be if they didn't attend college. High school is just not doing the job of preparing young people for a career, mostly due to lowered expectations and simply "putting them through" the system. This is why university is a
necessity for a viable career, rather than a luxury or a good suggestion.