Ed Dechert

Name:

Ed Dechert

MSU Degrees:

         BA in English, 2004

         MA English, 2006

         PhD Education, 2023

Favorite memories of being an undergraduate English major:

Reading in the library between classes and finding out about books I hadn’t read from professors.

Current Position:

Technical Writer

Organization:

Curtiss-Wright

When you graduated with a degree in English from MSU, what were your plans for your future?  Has your career path mostly realized those early plans, or have you discovered new plans and goals along the way?

I was, honestly, a little directionless as an undergraduate student. I don’t remember having any plan for my future when I finished my BA other than getting an MA in English. One of my professors had agreed to do a creative writing thesis with me, so that was probably my only real goal at the time. Teaching English composition classes as a graduate teaching assistant led to my first role as an instructor of technical writing in MSU’s Bagley College of Engineering.

After teaching technical writing for a number of years, I decided that I liked working in higher education, and I moved into a series of administrative roles. The work I did in these roles helped me pick up some experience and skills in areas that were broader than writing and teaching, and I ended up working on assessment and data analysis in the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness and then the Career Center. After working in higher education for several years, I decided I wanted to try something new and found my current position as a technical writer.

From my time as an undergraduate to now, I think I’ve had a variety of professional goals that have shifted depending on the type of work I was doing, opportunities (or lack of) for advancement, and just life in general. So I would definitely say I’ve discovered new plans and goals along the way.

What is your current occupation, and what does your work mostly consist of?

I am a technical writer at Curtiss-Wright. The branch I work at is focused on aerospace-related engineering and production, and my main responsibilities are producing/revising user manuals that accompany the systems. These manuals provide explanation and instructions so the end users know how to install, operate, and service the systems.

Which skills that you learned as an English major do you use most in your job?

Being a close reader is probably the most important skill that I developed as an English major because the work I do involves a good deal of reading and research before any actual writing happens. Close reading also helps me get a deep understanding of what I’m writing about and how content needs to be translated and communicated to the end user. The writing skills I developed as an English major are obviously also pretty important and get a good workout when it comes to writing, revising, and reviewing manuals. The last skill I would argue I use a good bit is being able to get interested in content/topics that I wouldn’t naturally gravitate to and learn them really well. In addition to having a natural curiosity, I think being an English major helped me learn how to get interested in a variety of topics and how to learn new things. Enjoying reading is a big help with this because reading is such a big part of learning.

What additional skills did you need to learn in order to do your job, and how did you learn them?

I’ve had to learn how to use various types of software, from publishing and design software to data management software. Some of this learning has happened on-the-job, but I think being familiar with other similar types of software from other jobs has also helped me pick up new programs quickly.

Working with others is also an important element of my current (and former jobs), and I learned how to be a good colleague/team member in several of my previous roles. Like anything else, I’ve found working with others to be enjoyable and challenging in different ways, but I probably prefer working with others when possible rather than working on my own.

Are there common misconceptions about your career field, which current English majors might share, that you have learned the truth about?

When I was an undergraduate, I remember being told occasionally by people outside of the university that you could do anything with an English degree, and I didn’t really believe that at the time. (The lack of specificity in those comments also usually made me skeptical that having an English degree would allow me to do “anything.”)

However, I think now I’ve experienced ways that the skills I learned in English have helped me work in areas that I wouldn’t have expected as an undergraduate. Being able to read and write well has generally been appreciated in my work environments, but also being able to learn new things has made it easier for me to branch out and do things like data analysis (which is sort of what reading books and writing papers is anyway) and assessment. So I guess the misconception that I had was that my career options would be limited to roles focused on writing/reading, and that has not been the case (although almost all jobs involve reading/writing, so it has been helpful to be good at both).

In what ways does your career enrich your life and help you to achieve your personal as well as your professional goals?

I personally enjoy learning new things, and I think my career has required/allowed me to do that pretty consistently. I’ve also gotten to the point in my career where I understand how my English background and experience makes me a good fit for roles in ways that might not be obvious to others, and having good writing skills helps me communicate this in a way that makes sense to the people I work with.

What advice do you have for undergraduate English majors right now who might want to follow the career path you did?

Look for ways that you can learn new skills in whatever role you find yourself in. As English majors, we tend to be good at learning things, and I’ve found that being willing and able to learn new skills, processes, software, etc. has allowed me to broaden the potential career paths that I could take. 

[Updated August 2024]