Instructional Designer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

My job is to create training material for sales reps at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. I design course objectives, content flow, and learning interactions. I also develop training materials for classroom, webinar, and eLearning formats, which means that I write all the scripting (that facilitator's use) for classroom training and design slide decks, job aids, and participant guides. I create eLearning using Adobe Captivate and Camtasia Studio. Usually I work extensively with subject matter experts (SMEs) to compile content and to ensure training materials meets the needs of the business and target audience.

At least half of my work is writing. As mentioned above, I write detailed scripts for facilitators/trainers. I write design maps (essentially outlines of course content), and I write scripts and storyboards for any videos or eLearning voice over content. In some cases, I write the course content from scratch if no SMEs are available.

After graduating, I went to Clemson University and got a master's in professional communication through the MAPC program. I was intent on becoming a professor. It was there I did research on game-based learning and discovered the world of instructional design through MAPC alumni. Instead of getting my PhD, I decided to take a detour from pursuing an academic career. Instructional design allowed me to stay in the field of instruction and teaching, just in a different way. About a year after I graduated from Clemson, I got a position as a learning and development specialist at Hewlett Packard training call center agents. I was there for a year after deciding I wanted a position that focused more on course development. Taking my current job at BCBSM has allowed me to hone my writing and graphic design skills.

The professional writing courses, in particular document design. I took the introductory and advanced courses. Learning to use Adobe products gave me a leg up in the job market. Adobe is still the gold standard, so learning those programs can be essential to getting a position. Document design also provided me foundational skills that I still use to this day in how I create documents for work.

Consulting with writers was an awesome course. It broadened my understanding of feedback and how essential it is to what writers do. A huge part of my job is giving and receiving feedback. Your writing in the workplace is always going to be looked at by someone else, so being able to take constructive criticism is important.

Multimodal composing was a great course that introduced me to how writing can be combined with so many other mediums. That relates to a majority of what I do—deciding what works best as text, image, audio, or video so that it is most engaging for my target audience. I focused a lot on multimodal composition in grad school and bring it into my work daily. I'm always advocating for multimedia based eLearning in our department or modernizing our old read only content.

Be open to the scope of what you can do with your writing major. Just because you major in writing doesn't mean you have to go out and become an editor or author. It may feel like you're limited or that writing isn't lucrative, but it is a greatly underestimated skill in the workplace. Communication is so important to how a company functions. If people do it poorly, the business suffers. I've seen entire projects fall apart due to poor communication. Writing/communication is a soft skill, but that doesn't make it easy.