Technical Writing

cogra10

Hi I a thinking of doing this course after I finish my degree, Im finishing up my degree in English and Archaeology and I have taken modules in humanities computing where I have built websites etc.. So I am just wondering what this course is like? Is it very intense? Could you still work while doing the course online? Just wondering what the Jobs prospects are like are they aboard or home based? What how much would you get paid?

seachto7

I did it in UL 10 years ago, and at the time job prospects in Ireland were good. The ar5e fell out of the industry within a few years of doing the course. There are still jobs, but they are hard to come by. If you had a language you could go abroad. Bordeaux is a place with aerospace and train building.
Mine is pretty much redundant now.

cogra10

Okay Thanks!
Hmm maybe this isn't such a good idea now, might have another look at it and compare it with a computering Dip. How you find doing the course anyways? What was the toughest thing about it, did you do long distance? Did you have much of a computer background when entering into it?

frogstomper

cogra10 wrote: »

Okay Thanks!
Hmm maybe this isn't such a good idea now, might have another look at it and compare it with a computering Dip. How you find doing the course anyways? What was the toughest thing about it, did you do long distance? Did you have much of a computer background when entering into it?

Hey

I thought about doing this course too and contacted someone who had just graduated from it that I found on linkedin. Here's the gist of what she said

"I did enjoy the first semester but the workload
in the second semester on top of my day job was huge. I didn't even get
to listen to my lectures the last two months of the course, I was just
too busy doing the seven assignments we had.

I really enjoyed the first semester and found that to be more
specifically about technical writing than the second. There was an
instructional design module and a more generic professional issues
module that were a move away from the strict focus of technical writing.
That's probably a personal preference though. I liked the technical
writing aspect more. One of the reasons I didn't enjoy the second
semester so much was that we were given a group project with three
deliverables to do over the semester. It was a big project, designing an
eLearning course in Flash, which none of us had used before. Trying to
do a project like that by email was really difficult


The lecturers use an online learning management system. They post their
lecture notes and a podcast of the lecture each week. Everything
revolves around this online system for the distance learning students.
It's where you get and submit your assignments, there are online forums
for each module, lab sheets are distributed, there is an online chat
each week for some modules etc. In some cases you will be awarded marks
for class participation and will need to post answers to discussion
items.

There was a lot of learning software, especially in the second semester
and that can be daunting for distance students if they aren't technical
computer users. We had assignments in Framemaker, Photoshop, CSS/XML,
Captivate and Flash"

Hope this helps a bit

seachto7

I did the full time course. I enjoyed it, though the workload was heavy. It seemed to be half IT/half writing. There are jobs in it, but the bulk of them seem to be outside Ireland. If you got experience, then opportunities would open in Canada, Aus, UK, EU, and obviously the USA. If you have a language I find it to be even more of an advantage.
Graduate level technical writing jobs seem to be thin on the ground though from what I can see....