What is Technical Communication?
If you're interested in finding out more about a field which US News and World Report named one of the top 20 Hot Job Tracks in the country, and what Newsweek listed as among the top 100 degrees in modern higher education, our site describes how to get your degree in Scientific and Technical Communication at Michigan Technological University. We're not only one of the largest undergraduate technical communication programs in the United States, but our program was recently recognized as one of only ten writing programs nationally to win the CCCC Writing Program Certificate of Excellence.
So what is Tech Comm? If you like communicating with others in ways that help them learn and achieve their goals, whether through speaking, writing, or graphic design; if you've always liked math or science and have an affinity for user-centered interface analysis and design, then you'd probably make a great technical communicator.
Technical communicators make scientific, technical, and practical knowledge available to a variety of audiences in various media such as print, video, web, and digital multimedia. They also often manage communication processes within organizations (including managing teams of other technical communicators), as well as create documents which represent those organizations to the wider public. Technical communicators:
- Produce everything from newsletters and brochures to marketing materials for a variety of organizations and businesses
- Write and edit manuals, design web sites, produce videos, and other multimedia projects for various industries, such as the automobile, computer, aeronautics, medical and environmental industries
- Work with engineers, researchers and scientists in producing reports and articles for publication in specialized technical, medical, or other trade journals
- Write grants to help non-profit organizations fund useful projects
- Publish computer documentation, and write on-line help files for complex software packages
- Translate technical and scientific information into other languages
- Produce sales and marketing, and public relations campaigns
- Compose and conduct internal training programs
- Consult for industry on risk communication, and on communications issues internal to- and external to organizations generally
- Teach Scientific and Technical Communication at university (with an advanced degree in STC)