End of the Semester

Well, it's the end of the semester once again and all of my students are busy with end of the semester assignments and studying (and so am I!) so instead of posting weekend readings this week I thought I'd offer up some advice.

Read.

OK, maybe I should elaborate.

Read anything other than Facebook, Twitter and those magazines that are sold by the check stand at the grocery store.

Like Harry Potter?  Good.  "Trashy" Romance novels?  Fine.  Mystery, Science Fiction?  Great.  

Here's a secret.  Reading ANYTHING will help you in life and career.  Sounds amazing, right?  It's true.

One of the big complaints employers are expressing about the fresh out of college crowd is that they don't know how to write well.  They use text-speak in memos, they don't know when to capitalize words and they use punctuation inappropriately.  Were they taught how to write in school?  Probably.  But then they forgot it all because who needs that stuff about references and dangling participles and all that, right?

If you work for a living and ever have to write anything, even an email to your boss, YOU need to remember that.  Your boss won't fire you for a dangling participle but they also won't think highly of you at promotion time if you sent them an email like this...

im two sic to come to werk 2day... i think i 8 sumthin bad...LOL

So read.  You will pick up basic writing skills without even trying.  You will expand your vocabulary without studying.  And then you will write in a style your boss appreciates.

And who knows, you might discover that you enjoy it more than you expect.