waiehse's review against another edition
4.75
4.5 stars
This book definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things and it’s going to change how I approach teaching for sure.
This book definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things and it’s going to change how I approach teaching for sure.
jwells's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
As someone naturally inclined to be a generalist with broad interests, I found this to be a validating read. I don't know what it would be like for a natural specialist, should any such person read it.
mauxbs's review against another edition
5.0
I really liked this book - mostly because it told me things I wanted to hear though. I'm very definitely a generalist, and I've been told over and over that I need to specialize, so it was reassuring to hear that I'm doing things right.
deansodium's review against another edition
5.0
I loved reading this book - it gives plenty of examples of people who succeed unconventionally (or so we think), at least some of which would resonate with anyone who has interests in different fields. Neither a head start nor rush to specialize guarantees success. It's more important to try out many things, see what we excel/fail at, and use that as an indicator of paths that would best suit us.
eddygrant's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this! Coolest psyc book I’ve read in ages (possibly ever). Excited to read it again.
amypixton2010's review against another edition
5.0
Examples throughout the book were fascinating and engaging. Epstein makes a solid case for re-examining assumptions we make in our self-reflection, looking at successful people and in our parenting.
deagaric's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often-times better than a master of one."
Interesting how we often just take out the last part of famous phrases and misconstrue the overall meaning entirely. Epstein beautifully illustrates a relatively novel generalize-rather-than-specialize perspective on approaching one's career and skill-building as a whole. This proposal goes against many of the commonly praised ideologies, such as the 10,000-hours rule and Duckworth's Grit perspective that encourages perseverance, by instead saying to not put your eggs in one basket, be multi-disciplinary regardless of the short-term costs, and know when to quit and move on.
Higher education is openly geared towards over-specialization, so I was put off by Epstein's perspective in the first few chapters, but he builds upon his reasoning with many detailed real-world examples and provides very compelling evidence.
One section I particularly enjoyed was Chapter 4, where Epstein does an engaging deep dive into approaches for learning and education. He introduces Kornell's concept of "desirable difficulties", where a learning process that is challenging, slow, and frustrating tends to lead to better concept comprehension in the long-run compared to learning approaches that are faster and more 'hint-based'. Generating wrong answers time in and time out before finally get it right, while anger-inducing, is extremely beneficial for learning and memory, and this is rarely discussed in many other books.
As the book progresses, Epstein makes it clear that the point is not to blindly avoid specialization at all costs, but rather to not let it get in the way of cognitive flexibility and to allow yourself to pursue skills and knowledge from a wide variety of sources, even if it may not be applicable to the current situation at hand. Further, you can combine the advantages of specialists and generalists through teamwork. Freeman Dyson had a nice analogy for this; birds fly high and have a 'big picture' point of view, frogs are in the mud and can see the details of their surroundings very clearly. One is not better than the other; building teams of 'birds' and 'frogs' allow the problem to be examined both broadly and deeply.
The book wraps up very nicely and makes for an interesting and highly insightful read.
Interesting how we often just take out the last part of famous phrases and misconstrue the overall meaning entirely. Epstein beautifully illustrates a relatively novel generalize-rather-than-specialize perspective on approaching one's career and skill-building as a whole. This proposal goes against many of the commonly praised ideologies, such as the 10,000-hours rule and Duckworth's Grit perspective that encourages perseverance, by instead saying to not put your eggs in one basket, be multi-disciplinary regardless of the short-term costs, and know when to quit and move on.
Higher education is openly geared towards over-specialization, so I was put off by Epstein's perspective in the first few chapters, but he builds upon his reasoning with many detailed real-world examples and provides very compelling evidence.
One section I particularly enjoyed was Chapter 4, where Epstein does an engaging deep dive into approaches for learning and education. He introduces Kornell's concept of "desirable difficulties", where a learning process that is challenging, slow, and frustrating tends to lead to better concept comprehension in the long-run compared to learning approaches that are faster and more 'hint-based'. Generating wrong answers time in and time out before finally get it right, while anger-inducing, is extremely beneficial for learning and memory, and this is rarely discussed in many other books.
As the book progresses, Epstein makes it clear that the point is not to blindly avoid specialization at all costs, but rather to not let it get in the way of cognitive flexibility and to allow yourself to pursue skills and knowledge from a wide variety of sources, even if it may not be applicable to the current situation at hand. Further, you can combine the advantages of specialists and generalists through teamwork. Freeman Dyson had a nice analogy for this; birds fly high and have a 'big picture' point of view, frogs are in the mud and can see the details of their surroundings very clearly. One is not better than the other; building teams of 'birds' and 'frogs' allow the problem to be examined both broadly and deeply.
The book wraps up very nicely and makes for an interesting and highly insightful read.