Shorthand - a phase?

After our first in-house shorthand assessment this morning, I felt quietly confident that I did pretty well. From the looks of my shorthand, I saw one blinding error that couldn't be fixed unless I knew the short form (which I didn't), and my transcription of the shorthand seemed pretty accurate, so fingers crossed on that one.

The exam was 60 wpm. At the start of the year, attaining a shorthand writing speed seemed as laughable as me growing female organs, yet as the year bore on, my speed was increasing at a pretty good pace.
Back in December, I remember practicing shorthand exercises back at home, and when speaking about the exam to my parents, I remember distinctively saying I couldn't do 40 wpm let alone 60, or 100 as is required of us future journos in our third and final year at university.

What amazes me is how far everyone I know, myself included, has come. Back in early October, we were only just piecing together the alphabet. Train journeys seemed the optimum time to practice writing the alphabet in less than 20 or so seconds, and upon completion a proud text to the nearest and dearest was never far away.
Come March, and we're all doing exam practices at at least 50 wpm. Some people from my seminar group can no doubt do over and beyond 60 wpm no doubt.

The next step (if I pass the exam of course) is 80 wpm. There's an optional test we can take earlier than usual if we feel confident enough to take the test a year early - that's in May. The thing that scared me though about this fact was not the test itself, but the way our lecturer phrased the testing process or, in particular, why May was the best time to take the test in her opinion.

During Christmas-time, if I hadn't had a good kicking up the backside by a few relatives, my shorthand would have seriously suffered. This Easter, now the test is (hopefully) passed, I won't practice the skill half as much as I usually would during university.

The same principle applies for summertime. With no exam to work towards, and no lectures taking place, combined with a hell of a lot of planned sunbathing on the coast of Lanzarote for two weeks, the skill will falter for me.

What scares me is what's next. Will we all come back from the summer rejuvenated in the knowledge that we can continue with the acquired skill that has taken us around 120 hours of writing time to develop to sufficient exam level or, like I'm probably right in thinking, will we come back from our holidays and have to need to restart our ABCs before even considering stringing a sentence together.

Sadly, I think for the majority of us BAMMJs, the second option will apply. Which made me think - what about in the long run? Most professionals I've spoken to said they haven't even used shorthand since their university days, and most found it hard to easily construct a simple sentence. Most lecturers will no doubt say differently, but it's pretty obvious from the things we pick up during our lectures that they too do not use the language. What with dictaphones and ever-increasing technology, it's surely a matter of time until the 'art' of shorthand dies out? After over 100 hours learning the skill, it feels like a huge shame to think that in a few years I may have lost the skill altogether. After all, in my future job, I doubt very much I'll have the time to scribble together a few pieces about John Smith and his dog Sparky whilst at work.