I've always thought that being a generalist is a good thing. It's the Renaissance spirit - perfect the mind, body, and spirit. Know a little bit about a lot.

This semester I'm taking a joke class about crime and justice. (I say it is a joke class because it is so easy, and because it is a general course and not related at all to what I want to learn). Normally, in one of these general, joke classes I still try to learn all I can because, as I said, I want to be knowledgable about many different topics.

But this crime and justice class is the most boring class I've ever taken! I know it is a very important topic, and people (I suppose necessarily) devote their whole lives to it. But as a programming student, I just don't care about different ways of measuring crime and the "challenges to effective policing." The textbook provides the worst reading you could ever subject yourself to. It's just so hard to be interested in this material.

Seriously, this class is making me question my generalist philosophy. Maybe the Renaissance man was wrong - maybe it is better to be extremely good at only one thing.

In a world based on survival of the fittest, I think being knowledgable about many different subjects would be useful. But do we really live in such a world anymore? Not to the extent it used to be. We don't have to cut down trees to build our house, or hunt for our food every night. There are specialists who will do just about everything for us, if we desire it.

All I know for sure anymore is that it's quite hard to be a generalist when you have to trudge through subjects that you have absolutely, not the smallest shred of interest in.