A Most Useful Class

The single most beneficial class that I think that I've ever taken was touch-typing.

It was mandatory to take as a freshman in my high school in a remarkable burst of foresight. I find myself surprised whenever I find my peers in IT, or others who's work relies on a keyboard, who can't touch type. I take it for granted!

To be fair, my school was pretty good about encouraging computer use and exposing students to the internet. Granted, this was pretty early on in www-days (1994-5), so the big-G didn't exist, and information was sparse and hard to find. The search engines of the day were nigh-useless.

I was also fortunate to have Internet access at home (well, AOL, so a slice of the internet...), so I didn't get much use out of the school's resources except for not having to burn my online minutes.

Anyway, I am truely glad that my school had the foresight to make Touch Typing a mandatory class. Otherwise, I would have never taken it. Sadly, I never got the habit of using the right-shift key, and my numbers are still shaky...

(Irony is writing an article praising touch-typing using only two thumbs.)

-Waldo