On-The-Job-Training vs. College Training

I've been at my current job for about 3 years now. It was the first real job I got out of college, and it was probably the best experience I could have possibly gotten. I am simply astounded by the amount I have learned in the last few years. I am more confident in my skills and abilities in writing and communication in general than ever before.

I was having a conversation with the president of the board of directors about how much I have learned by working with the director (a woman with several decades of experience and expertise). I said that I learned more here than I did in my writing program college. The president agreed, recalling his own experience working in his first print shop out of college.

I sat down tonight to talk about how you will learn far, far more about your field in your job than you ever will in school. But then I started arguing, as I am wont to do, and I realized that it is not quite that simple.

The reality is that college prepared me for the job I have. I had a strong command of English, spelling, and grammar, but I was not an expert. My classes forced me to train. I was writing constantly, exploring styles and techniques, and learning the nuance of communication and criticism. If I did not have the very strong base that I gained from college, I would not have gotten my job in the first place.

All that said, college is also nowhere near as intense in training as a job. In college, you are absorbing knowledge about several subjects. I was learning math, chemistry, philosophy, sociology, Chinese, astronomy, and several other subjects, all in addition to my writing courses (which is a world unto itself in the first place). In a job, you are just doing writing. You are doing it all the time. And you are probably focusing on one particular kind of writing, which is going to make you intimately familiar with it.

Ultimately, I cannot say that one is better than the other. A good college writing program should give you both a strong and a wide base from which you can grow and develop. A good job will be where you do grow and develop from your base.