Tickey boxes!

[quesarah]

As the current job is fairly brainless and uninspiring, and as broadening one's skillset tends to make one slightly more employable, I'm going to take some courses through UCSD's Extension Campus. The thing is, I'm having trouble choosing between bioinformatics classes and technical writing classes. To be clear, both areas are appealing to me. On one hand, there's the appeal of acquiring the tools needed to analyze complex gene expression data and learn nifty cool things about how biological systems work. On the other hand, I was a biochemistry major who accidentally (nearly) minored in English because I took lots of writing-intensive interdisciplinary courses. Because they were FUN. Hee!

Naturally, when faced with such a choice I take the scientific approach: Ticky Boxes!


[Poll #550816]

ETA: Please comment with your rationale for choosing one or the other, I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

Comments

[zazuomgwtf.livejournal.com]

I just think that getting a skill in science that few people have will be more of a plus than technical writing. Also writing that kind of stuff seems boring.

[biogeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks. As it is, I could probably learn technical writing more quickly by simply doing it. I'm fairly adept at explaining science to non-scientists so I was sort of thinking that classwork might not be too beneficial.

[king-ghidorah.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true. At this point of your career, if you just start writing technical stuff, it may be more marketable than any classes you take. But you need to write and publish, which is the tough thing.

[scrump.livejournal.com]

I am deeply, deeply skeptical of any course that purports to teach the craft of technical writing, but I'm an iconoclast.

As I see it, the "technical writing industry" exists to further the illusion that we need a technical writing industry, or things like the "Society For Technical Communication". As far as I'm concerned, the STC is just another bunch of self-important twits handing out merit badges for meeting their arbitrary criteria.

On the other hand, I've always had a natural gift for words, and I've never had to improve my writing to do my job. But, fundamentally, I believe that a talented writer will benefit far, far more from learning about technology than they will from learning about sentence structure.

[among-the-waves.livejournal.com]

if it's not too much of a hassle/expense, can you take both of them and see which one fits better? Or go peruse the textbooks in the store and see if one of them makes you squee more than the other?

[king-ghidorah.livejournal.com]

Writing is a portable skill to many careers. Good technical writers who have strong writing and technical skills are hard to find. If you are looking at management or freelance work, the writing can work well. The down side is that writing is very much a soft skill, and selling that skill will involve a lot of work (and probably initial loss of pay) as you gain your chops in a new field. The plus is that this could lead to freelancing and consulting which could mean freedom (and some very hard work days.)

Bioinformatics is just plain cool. If you can get two bioinformaticians to agree what "Bioinformatics" is, you're ahead of most people, though. Finding a good biologist who knows computational tools and how to apply them well is rarer than finding a biologist who really understands the chemistry they are doing. That is, the people out there in plenty of numbers, but not enough to fill the need.

Combine the two, and you could be a demon of science writing, grant writing (if you learn another set of skills), sales work, or data presentation.

Of course, as someone who took both ancient Greek and calculus (and linear algebra and differential equations) for fun, maybe I am not the best person to talk to.

[sexxyred1.livejournal.com]

JUst because I think you need more underwater baskets in you life! Luv-luv (isn't that something you can do while waiting for waves?)

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

I'd say focus on the bioinformatics but take a course or two on the tech writing, since the latter might actually help with the former and could be one of those valuable add-on things you can put on a resume.

And underwater basketweaving is just a given. Be sure to show us piccies. :)

[i_kender]

Bioinformatics, because I am sceptical of the merits involved in doing a course in technical writing. And think it would be a pain to boot.

But hey, if you're not going to go for underwater basket weaving, maybe you could do soething else just for fun and pleasure? Creative writing class, life drawing, ninja survival secrets, you know.

[lizardsmae.livejournal.com]

Technical writing is not really English and in my experience Not really fun.
But I can see you with some Bioinformatics and skills and learning some groovy new shit. I would go for the new skills first and then learn how to communicate in geekese or as you said technical writing. Love ya.

[woe2you.livejournal.com]

Don't be expecting a serious answer out of me if you give a silly option.

[nightxade.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Besides, I hear the basket weaving is taught by dolphins and we all know how smart they are.

Get someof that technowriting in there though. It sounds like it might be very useful for side stuff like writing super instructions on how to take over the world, scientifically.

[biogeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the value of tech writing classes will be in networking and in generating writing samples. But the bioinformatics courses will probably be more challenging and marketable.