X hits the spot
How a generalist can be niche too.
As someone who works in technology, and studies technology, I naturally end up talking and reading a lot on technology.
The headline of “will AI take over our jobs” is a topic that i’m very familiar with — whether it be an admissions question, a media cycle, or a class discussion.
But what’s more interesting to me about this topic is how people think technology can so easily displace the human race.
For those who think technology will displace the human, by taking over our jobs, have you ever thought of who created these technologies? It’s us. The humans.
Instead of thinking about how you will one day lose your job because a computer can do it, have you thought about how you can upgrade or pivot yourself so that you cannot be replaced?
As I sat in one of my law class where we discussed “can AI take over your jobs”, one of my classmates beside me rose her hand and said “I don’t know what to tell my kids. What do I even tell them to go study now that they’re in undergrad, and 1–2 years away from entering university. What should they apply to?”.
When I heard her question, my emotions bubbled and I immediately wanted to comment on her comment. I almost never discuss in class — so this is huge! I spoke up in class and I said “It’s about the ‘X’ — if you can find a few things that intersects, and you work in the intersection of the ‘X’, it makes you very niche and much less likely to be displaced.”
Maybe visualizing the ‘X’ is hard, but think of it as the middle slice of a Venn diagram. We all know about the Venn diagram, we all know the middle is the sweet spot. But we often don’t think about, if you have 2+ slices, you can create the middle slice. Also, the middle slice does not exist if you only have 1 slice. It must be 2+.
When you have 2 or more skills to work with, it’s very easy to be in the middle of the Venn diagram. It’s even better if these things you’re passionate about, and you can mix and match what you love and enjoy doing most. For me, it’s health care, tech, and policy. I found my ‘X’ here. For others, it may be finance and tech, aka FinTech. The opportunities are endless.
As you dabble here and there and figure out what you like and dislike, and adding and subtracting from your ‘X’, you might even find different areas that did not exist prior or want to venture into. For me, as I dabbled in my original trio, I figured that data science and law was something that I also wanted to pursue. And I did that, and I made myself more niche than before. I became the guru in people’s eyes. There’s other things that I want to do too, but I need to pace myself otherwise I can’t hone the skills that I need and instead I might just wreck everything at once.
You might be thinking, isn’t there a risk to being so niche? Yes, you can be niche, but the irony to be able to be niche in the X is that you actually need to be good at all slices of your Venn diagram. You need to be proficient in each thing that you decide upon otherwise you can’t formulate the X. Think of it as this: everything knows basic stats, but statisticians really and actually know stats. When you mix health care with stats, you get epidemiology, but can everyone who works in health care be an epi? The answer is no. You need to be good at both.
The lesson here is, it’s good when you can become a generalist and be good at many things, but it’s even better when you can conjoin those things and find the ‘X’. X hits the spot.
