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Generalist or Specialist
By FrauTech on November 4, 2011
Theres a phrase: jack of all trades master of none. I was thinking of ones progression as an engineer.
When you graduate college you are in many ways like a Swiss army knife (drawing from rowland jones).
You have a wide variety of basic tools but are probably not particularly good at any one thing. In many
ways college teaches one the ability to learn engineering. And then you spend the rest of your career
learning engineering.
But at some point you have to start narrowing it down. Especially if you are, like me, a mechanical
engineer or as one of my classmates put it a mercenary engineer. My degree qualified me to work in any
number of disciplines: mechanical systems, fluids and heat transfer, structural analysis, flight and
aerospace technologies, and manufacturing. The first job you take can often lead you down the path of a
particular discipline within your degree. A specialization in a masters program could also lay down that
path for you.
But its not necessarily a linear path. Many people work in one industry for many years and decide to start
all over again as an engineer in another industry. Or many branch off into a different but similar and
related technology. But even if youre at the same company and the same department its often possible to
start to move into a systems level engineering job, into a management job, or into a very product specific
role or even a theoretical analysis based position. Specializing too soon could lock down the rest of your
career. But failing to specialize enough could leave you lacking many of the necessary skills to excel as an
engineer.
What do you think? What is the appropriate balance between being a generalist and being a specialist?
What is your personal level of comfort and what are your own career plans?
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Posted in Mechanical Engineering, Workplace | Tagged communication, engineering education, job training
| 8 Responses
8 responses to Generalist or Specialist
Miss MSE
November 4, 2011 at 10:36 am | Permalink | Reply
Since the fundamental goal of a PhD is to become the worlds leading expert in some very specific
thing, I expected to become a specialist to a much greater degree than seems to have happened.
Because Ive worked on such disparate projects, to some degree, Ive remained a generalist.
Theres several different types of specialization for MSE: you can specialize in a process, a
characterization method, or a material class. I can best be classified as a process-type specialist, with
my process being atomistic simulations.
However, because Id ultimately like to teach, I want to remain a bit of a generalist, so that I can
competently speak on a broader range of subjects. So all in all, Im pretty had with the degree of
specialization Im at.
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Chris Gammell
November 4, 2011 at 4:33 pm | Permalink | Reply
I think generalists are most employable and yet almost all job descriptions are written for specialists
(often times multi-specialists, so perhaps they just want a really good generalist?). Ive always railed
against diving too deep into one subject because theres so much to learn. I think a good followup
post would be to highlight a Gen Y type person who is a specialist, because I dont think this
happens nearly as much these days. And I think that will cause some problems in industry (and
possibly opportunity) in the coming years.
bill
November 4, 2011 at 8:23 pm | Permalink | Reply
Thats a pretty interesting statement but it seems to be true. At least in electrical engineering,
all the experts I know seem to be older, while younger engineers are more generalists /
integrators who can also code. I dont think this is much of a problem though because
specialists are less and less important. Back in the day, you needed to be a power expert to
design a switching power supply, now you just order a part from a good company, follow the
data sheet instructions, example designs and use the companies design software. Specialization
is being pushed back to the IC companies, freeing engineers to do more of the higher level fun
stuff. That being said, I think it is still good to semi-specialize in certain areas to help
distinguish yourself from other generalists out there. This is usually pretty easy anyways as we
all have unique interests.
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Fluxor
November 6, 2011 at 12:13 am | Permalink | Reply
Specialization is being pushed back to the IC companies, freeing engineers to do more
of the higher level fun stuff.
So who are those people designing ICs? Art history majors?
bill
November 9, 2011 at 10:00 pm | Permalink | Reply
LOL, good point.
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Nastya
May 21, 2012 at 8:22 am | Permalink | Reply
In our current ecmoinoc times, it seems that it is imperative to be versatile. Specializing in a
field is not only time consuming in terms of schooling, but it leaves the person open to
ecmoinoc and technological changes. This can be seen with our current technology. Once
people had to process information by hand; now computers are able to process that same
information in a fraction of the time. The people that were specialized in that processing are
now out of a job or were smart enough to be able to shift gears and become familiarized with
another industry. It seems that the most full-proof method is, as in most cases, a mix of the
two ideologies. Similar to building a house, one must have a solid foundation, built with
materials such as: mathematics, science, communication skills, finance, ethics, hard work,
determination, and problem-solving. Once that strong foundation is built, the person can start
building on top of it, much like specializing into a specific field. If ever a disaster comes along
that demolishes that building (i.e. poor ecmoinoc times leading to job cuts), the person will not
have to live on the street. Using those building materials mentioned earlier, the person can do
more than just survive, he can once again thrive by rebuilding (re-specializing) onto his still
solid foundation.
2.
flimflamsam
December 12, 2011 at 1:39 pm | Permalink | Reply
good point at the end. school isnt about learning engineering. It teaches us how to learn, so that we
can learn engineering. The real lesson begins on the job. Doesnt matter what youre degree is. You
dont know anything when you first walk onto the job.
3.
Roberr
December 27, 2011 at 2:58 pm | Permalink | Reply
In our current economic times, it seems that it is imperative to be versatile. Specializing in a field is
not only time consuming in terms of schooling, but it leaves the person open to economic and
technological changes. This can be seen with our current technology. Once people had to process
information by hand; now computers are able to process that same information in a fraction of the
time. The people that were specialized in that processing are now out of a job or were smart enough
to be able to shift gears and become familiarized with another industry.
It seems that the most full-proof method is, as in most cases, a mix of the two ideologies. Similar to
building a house, one must have a solid foundation, built with materials such as: mathematics,
science, communication skills, finance, ethics, hard work, determination, and problem-solving. Once
that strong foundation is built, the person can start building on top of it, much like specializing into a
specific field. If ever a disaster comes along that demolishes that building (i.e. poor economic times
leading to job cuts), the person will not have to live on the street. Using those building materials
mentioned earlier, the person can do more than just survive, he can once again thrive by rebuilding
(re-specializing) onto his still solid foundation.
4.
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Authors
Cherish The Scientist
Chris Gammell
EngineerBlogs.org Guest
Fluxor
FrauTech
GEARS
Miss MSE
Miss Outlier
Paul Clarke
Sam Feller