Tutorial with Joe Gilmore

Had my tutorial with Joe today, basically discussing my ideas for the final major project and how I wanted to enter in the industry in general. Seeing my interest in technical illustration, he was interested to know whether the work I was producing was part of the kind of 'style' of work I wanted to produce or whether I wanted to go into technically illustration fully, as a instruction manual designer for a company or doing it freelance. This was a difficult question for me to answer, at that point I hadn't even considered the idea that I could produce work of this kind as part of a creative/experimental type of practice. One of the resulting ideas was to take the work I had been producing for my research/exhibit brief and make a book based on these instruction manuals literally being works of art that need to be documented, exhibited and preserved. This fit in with some of the stuff I was doing anyway, so I may pursue this idea. He also commented that I should scan my manuals rather than photograph them, as the detail in the line drawings are not that clear on the photographs I have taken (with perhaps a few smaller supplementary photographs thrown in).
Although he was unsure of the fact, he suggested that perhaps technical illustration was part of another line of education rather than graphic design, and that it is possible that the work produced in manuals are produced by either someone working at the company with a design background or an in-house graphic designer. Personally I prefer the latter, however I did my career research (on Connexions of all places) and came up with this:

"Technical illustrators need:
excellent drawing and IT skills
an eye for detail and design
precise, accurate and clear presentation skills
a strong interest in, and an understanding of, science and technology.
Most technical illustrators have an HND or degree in an art and design subject, although it is possible to become a technical illustrator without any specific qualifications. For general information about becoming an illustrator, see Illustrator."

This is good news for me : ) A follow up tutorial with Joe is in 2 weeks.