Writing Matters: Student Edition

Everyone, no matter what their field, needs the ability to communicate effectively in a range of situations. Academic and professional success depend upon it. Stanford's President, John Hennessy, a computer scientist and electrical engineer, once put it this way: "[In college] we had a notion that engineers had to know how to use slide rules or calculators or computers but not how to write. And that is the biggest falsehood you could possibly perpetrate on young people. I think writing and rhetoric -- public speaking -- are the two most valuable skills across any discipline in any field." Here, Stanford undergraduate students in engineering, the humanities, mathematics, and the natural sciences talk about the importance of communication in their disciplines, and how their PWR experiences played a role in why writing matters to them.