To be honest, the only reason I enrolled in this class was a schedule conflict. For my minor in Open Source & Free Culture, I was given a choice between this class and Software Development for Linux Systems. Unfortunately, the only section of that class coincided with my capstone timeslot, so my fate was sealed. Serendipitously, Technical Writing turned out to be a pleasurable and enriching experience!
According to the syllabus, Technical Writing aimed to help me:
Without a doubt, my skills in all of these areas have improved as a result of the class. In particular, the study of the meta of documents; why and for whom do we write, was the most invaluable to me. Innumerable are the occasions when I have encountered poor technical writing. Almost always, the reason that a document is ineffective or unpleasant to read is because the writer failed to consider their audience when composing it.
Through this class, I experienced an epiphinal realization: That a sizable portion of my work as a professional is a form of technical writing. In fact, I am immersed in technical writing far more than I realized before the class. Specifically, the creation and consumption of manuals, presentations, and digital materials will benefit my career. As a programmer, I will likely need to do research and present the findings to co-workers; the analogous class assignment was great practice. I expect that being able to work and communicate in a group will be critical in my career, as they have in every job I’ve had so far. The inclusion of a collaborative group project was a fantastic way to brush up on those skills.
Out of the many assignments I completed for this course, I chose to include a policy manual, a business letter, a technical definition, and video game level analysis (external). I chose these assignments because they showcase a diverse array of technical document formats, while all maintaining the ethos of spreading technical knowledge and understanding. They demonstrate my ability to write for various audiences and exigencies. I improved nearly every aspect of my communication skills through this course. The only “new” things were some of the document formats--never before have I created a policy manual or internal memo. That’s perfectly fine, though, because every project was relevant in some way to working as a technical writer.
I believe that while the class was not indispensable to my education or career, the extra writing experience and insight will help. In some way or another, every computer program, app, and website involves writing. These projects are nearly always created by groups of people. And surrounding digital creations are manuals, policies, letters, and other forms of traditional writing. Its relevancy to programming is subtly hidden, yet plainly obvious. Stated succinctly, programming is a group writing activity. In this way, the course aligns quite well with my career goals.
Much of the success of what I do requires others to understand. Technical Writing fits with my other course content as a means of supporting my communications skills. The lack of these skills in many technically-oriented people is a blight on the industry. While I continue to lament the prevalence of General Education credits in degree requirements, I cannot deny the benefits of communication classes. At my internships and in group-based assignments at RIT, I made writing mistakes which would have likely been avoided, had I taken this class prior.
Creating this portfolio has been a fun exercise in engineering an alternative website to communicate who I am to the world. I have an existing portfolio, which I been iterating upon since my 1st year at RIT. I continue to love it, but creating and working with a fresh design is always exhilarating for me. At first I considered simply modifying the existing one, but I chose to create a new one, given the specific nature of the project requirements, and the different genre of the corresponding portfolio items.
I created this site using Foundation, a front-end framework. This enabled me to rapidly create pages which are compatible with mobile devices. I also included a live email contact form, pictures of myself, and links to my Github and Twitter accounts. The varied content, concise navigation, and typographical choices (spacing, headers, chunking of text, et. al.) make the site understandable to an audience which expands beyond the class and potential employers. These choices reflect class discussions on logos, exigency, and digital document design. In fact, one could say this site itself is a portfolio piece :)