Follow-up to this for folks. Based on the responses, it seems that many folks indeed DID learn something from college about writing. But many others did not. This makes me think that whether or not you learned something depended entirely upon your individual teacher rather than college as an institution. Which is, I guess, how every college class is. My organic chem teacher literally couldn't keep the class awake except by threatening us with bad grades if we nodded off. My physics teacher had us champing at the bit to learn more. It's the teacher after all. Which makes me worry about institutions which vet their instructors on worldview instead of enthusiasm for teaching. While the left dominates many colleges today, I've visited some right-wing colleges and the trend is just as dreadful there. I think it's because teachers who can't teach spend their time critiquing and pulling down those who can.