Unsurprising to the English majors reading this, I love to write. I feel most complete when writing novels, short stories, or academic papers. Only when I find the right sequence of words can I effectively bare my soul.
However, as I have explored more writing genres, I have found that my passion for the craft exceeds creative and academic pursuits. I became interested in how writing was utilized in everyday contexts, how typified genres were explored in professional contexts, and how writing is used alongside rapidly evolving technologies. For these reasons, I started to consider Technical Writing, not just as a career option, but as a way to explore alternative writing genres. I began thinking about how Technical Writing marries writing and science to form a new genre, and how that is important to those of us who are irrevocably enamored with the craft.
To satiate this curiosity, I accepted a Technical Writing internship with EA Games. During my internship, I witnessed the importance of writing within a professional setting. Many technology companies are frequently on the precipice of new and innovative ideas and products. While the importance of these ideas or products is abundantly clear to the engineers and designers who made them, there is an exigence for explaining the importance in accessible language. I was tasked with crafting such language. I also learned how writing is used to communicate across global communities, and also how it evolves with technology. While there was a focus on the engineering forces at EA, the importance of writing was an unspoken accompaniment. One could not exist without the other. As our economy becomes focused on technology, writing is becoming more and more important to the accessibility of technology.
Through this internship, I learned my passion for writing was not exclusive to the creative and academic outlets I am accustomed to. I understand that writing has utilitarian function in contexts I wouldn’t have previously considered. In this sense, my passion for writing has grown because even though I have considered myself a writer for years, I have realized there is still much to explore within the field. I believe that the sense of the unknown, that sense of continuous evolution, is why my passion for writing will remain a lifelong devotion.
Haley Helgesen
Student Representative, Midwestern Region, 2016-2017
Phi Delta Chapter
Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL
