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[quote=Anonymous]It makes no difference what college your DS goes to, it matters that he reads and writes frequently and persistently. Whatever major he chooses, he should take more than just the first year college composition course that is required of most students - he should also take advanced composition and business and technical writing and even creative writing, as many writing courses as he can fit into his electives. Or major in English with a concentration in rhetoric.

As a JD with undergraduate degrees in English and Political Science and a master’s in English during which degree program I was a TA teaching college composition, and having taught writing for several more years after graduation as adjunct faculty, I can attest to two things: most programs of study at university are terrible at teaching writing - I have seen so many engineering, microbiology, history and other majors who struggled to craft a solid coherent argument and to use language in sophisticated ways expected at that level of writing. The English department is where writing is most effectively taught and learned. Most universities have a writing center where students in ALL majors can get peer and faculty assistance with writing and that is where students should go because often faculty in their own disciplines are no help at all. (Have you tried reading some of the scholarly articles and books that come out of some of these departments? One of the reasons that historians like Goodwin, Beschloss, McCullough, Meacham and Zinn are so popular and well known is that they are in the minority of really good writers in their disciplines - same with scientists like Hawking and Wilson and Gould. The other thing is that legal writing is a very different beast full of arcane rules and quirks that constantly challenge the normal writing skills most law students bring to bear. It helps a great deal to be a very strong writer going in, so that after you’ve been mind melded to the way of legal writing you can still bring some passion and technique to legal briefing that will move courts and clients alike. The vast majority of practicing lawyers are pretty awful writers.[/quote]

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