Generalist or Specialist? Don’t Choose
How you can become both, and why you should.
So, what are you going to do with your degree?
It was the dreaded question we faced as we trudged through college.
For those who had a life passion long before they were even old enough to pronounce it, the answer was pretty easy.
When I grow up, I’m going to be an astroph…astrofishishsist….a space person!
For others — people who changed majors more often than their dorm bed sheets — the question was often terrifying.
Even if you did manage to stick with just one major, people would ask what you want to specialize in. Oh, you want to be a historian? What time period? A doctor? What field of medicine?
When I was going through college, students thought a “too general” sounding degree was more useful as toilet paper than listed on a résumé. Everyone wanted to get a degree that “mattered.” Heaven pity those poor souls dumb enough to fall for the “multidisciplinary studies” trap. Multidisciplinary Studies…I can already hear the hiring manager laughing as he folds the job application into a paper airplane — letting it fly straight into the trash bin.
That wasn’t really the case in the real world, though. After college, I learned there was a place in the world for…
