I won’t need to be a good writer to be good at my job

This isn’t something that people like to hear, but if you are planning to use your degree, you are almost certainly wrong about that. Your job may not have writing at its center, but being able to communicate effectively is important for everyone, especially if you are ambitious at all. Maybe you don’t care, you’re rich, you’ll go to work at a company one of your parents owns, and you’ll have people whose job it is to communicate for you. If you aren’t that person or you want to have more skills than that person does, then you’re going to need to learn to communicate.

In addition, if you rarely need to write, the occasions upon which you will need to write or communicate will be especially important. They will stand out in the memories of colleagues, supervisors, and even potential employers; being known professionally as someone unwilling or unable to communicate rarely works in someone’s favor. You may not need writing to be good enough at your job, but you will probably need to be well regarded.

Finally, improving your writing is another way of improving your thinking. Just as other academic work and hobbies support various physical and intellectual skills, learning to write better will you learn to think better in key ways. Improving your writing improves your mental organization and can help you become a better problem solver at work and in life.

You don’t have to be the best writer or a perfect writer but by working on and improving your skill set, you make things easier for yourself in the future. Don’t let this skill set dwindle, work on making sure that you are as good as you can be at getting your ideas across.