How/when/where did you learn to type?

First class Monday mornings Sr. Yr of High School. Usually bleary eyed from lack of sleep, but I did pass with 35 wpm and less than 6 errors after one semester, (This was on Royal manual typewriters). I probably didn't type anything for 5 or 6 years, then one day (I was in the small loan business then) the secretary was out and a loan needed to be typed up, and I discovered I hadn't forgotten too much. Now nearly 50 years later I still type with all 10 fingers, but I have a bad habit of looking at the keyboard, (which usually slows me down). One of the most useful classes I took in HS.
 
One year of typing at Tulsa Central High School '68-'69, mostly because Lee Anderson (a cute brunette) was taking it. I didn't get to keep her, but I maintained my typing skills learned on the ever popular Underwood upright. Typing made papers in college easier for professors to read. (Still don't know if that was a good thing or not.) Work-study job in college was a keypunch operator!

Typing operations orders and reports in the Army made me popular with my bosses. Finally got table top computers in the late '80's but never did get typing faster than about 40-50 words a minute, and the IT guys got tired of changing keyboards since I was still banging on them like they were manual Underwoods. I've finally adapted to the delicate little things.

Just to be on the safe side, I have a 1929 Royal Portable typewriter (painted woodgrain!) and a case of spare ribbons. Getting ready for Y2K, I put it on my desk at work with a sign on the cubicle wall over it reading "Y2K Back-up System". Can't believe how many people asked me what it was, and, for those who knew what it was, where the power cord was.

ECS
 
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Several regrets in my life.
1. Not taking typing
2. not taking latin
3 not letting the military pay for law school and then joining navy JAG
4. Doing what I was expected to do on the expected timetable.

Looking back I wonder just how different it would be if I had had the balls to say eff it and take a year off to explore and do what I wanted to do. I secretly hope my kids don't let that opportunity pass. Alas the musings of a man in the third quarter of his 50's.
 
Took a semester in H.S. 30+ years ago. Been typing ever since. I can COMPOSE at 70 words a minute...I type faster than I can use those voice-to-text (nonsense to me) software products.

I've written three books recently. One is in it's 18th edition. It is 1,557 pages long at this point.

Yep, lots to write about...and you can't say it if you can't type it.

On the downside; being able to type, or program a computer, or do math, or fix things, or basically do anything useful WILL GENERALLY keep you OUT of the better management jobs. Most people can't do very much useful work...so they can't promote you at most companies because there won't be anybody to do the work...

AND, as we all know; actually DOING THE WORK just doesn't pay worth a darn...and I need the cash to buy more S&W's!
 
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One cooking class in high school (served me well over the years)

typing class was mandatory in my second eight at Ft Leonard Wood
Basic Army Administration training. My typing skills are long gone at age 72 :)
 
swilli41 said:
Sophomore in high school....one semester. I got to about 25 or 30 wpm, but Joyce, next to me, could bang out 70 to 80 wpm with no mistakes. Kind of a humbling experience. I wish I had taken short hand the next semester. That would have been handy for college as well.
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25-30 wpm.... I bet Joyce was a fox :-p
 
Still can't, really. The Army sent me to learn teletype (go figure) and , of course, you have to type on those funny keyboards, and you had to type a minimum number of words to pass the course, which I could not do. Finally, the Sergeant ordered me to cheat! I still couldn't make it. I think he finally just passed me anyway. Then when I was 50 yrs old, I went back to school; couldn't type, computer illiterate, and had to take a full semester of "prep" courses before I could actually start the regular curriculum. But I hung in there, and with the Lords help, I ended up getting a BA and an MA after almost 7 years of year round classes. I really enjoyed it. I had always hated school of any kind; it took me 5 years to get out of high school (3 schools, took 11th grade over "voluntarily") I couldn't make it without "spell check" and I'm real grateful for days when I actually use BOTH index fingers at the same time!
 
I plan on taking my first lesson in the near future.After all how hard can it be?
 
I took typing in junior high school. It was useful throughout the rest of junior and senior high, and college round one. Early on, handing in papers we were given the option of typed or handwritten, and I think it was better when you typed your work. By the time I finished high school I was at about 55-60 WPM on a manual machine, or 60-65 on an electric. I could change the ribbons on either blindfolded (not impressive, but a result of learned having spent time in a photography light tight room loading film onto reels and tanks)

Then I entered the working world and was dependent on computers, I did a lot of work on system 36's and AS400's in the property and casualty insurance field. I got to about 70-75 WPM. When I added data entry into the works, I was over 10,000 keystrokes an hour

I've become much slower since I do not use that skill nearly as often as I used to.

The amazing, and disheartening, thing is that ability on the typewriter's keyboard did NOT mean skill on the piano's keyboard.
 
I learned either as a junior or senior in high school (graduated in 1974).

High school graduation present was an electric typewriter which I took to college (EKU) where it got a lot of use, not only by me but others on my floor.
 
A number of us have had similar experiences, I see. I took typing either my sophomore or junior year of high school, and, as others have said, it was the most valuable course I had. I'm still not fast(35wpm or so), and my wrists tend to get tense and tired when doing a lot of it, but I use all the fingers and don't have to look at the keyboard very often. Thank you, Mrs. Edie.

Andy
 
Reading all the responses from the folks here about typing at their jobs in the 80's reminded me of on older manager we had, right about the time when everyone was starting to get a computer on their desk and email was taking off. He basically refused to have one. Said typing was for secretaries. His secretary printed out his emails, which he read, and then dictated his response to them for her to reply to the sender.

He retired pretty shortly thereafter. Never found out if it was voluntarily or not.
 
Learned a long time ago in HS like most of us here. Currently teach MS Office in a local HS and the kids have a tough time.....cause they have to use FINGERS and not their THUMBS! They are lucky if they can type 20 words a minute but they can text about 75 with their hand in a bookbag or purse!

The guys favorite thing is to text with the phone between their legs. I tell them "you are either doing 1 of 2 things...so I hope you give me the phone"! They look at me like I am speaking in Russian! Goes right over their heads.
 
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