Let’s try this again. Kass’s response to Saturday’s post:
Would you rather have a group of people who know a little bit about everything, but are not experts at anything… or a group of specialized people in a variety of topics?
It seems to me that the former — which is very much the type of mentality the interactive media program tries to churn out — has been touted as a more efficient group of people, but what would they do if they did not have specialists to hire for their end goals?
I think your first question erroneously implies that breadth and depth are binary qualities and that they are mutually-exclusive. Perhaps it’s a bit nitpicky, but it means that breadth vs. depth is a false choice. Working on one skill (to gain depth) doesn’t preclude you from seeing parallels in other skills (thereby gaining breadth). For example, having to internalize the operation of a complex IC makes it easier for me to learn how other systems work. Similarly, having the breadth to see things from multiple perspectives makes it easier to progress in a single skill. For example, my skill in visual disciplines helps me visualize different ways of implementing the same on-chip computations.
Your second question is true. Specialists (depth) are definitely needed, but going back again to Randy Nelson’s talk, the key is for them to be interested—interest in what others are doing—rather than just interesting—interest only in what they are doing. Do you think it’s more accurate to say that the Interactive Media program churns out people that are interested (rather than people that are broad)?
(I backdated this by an hour and half. I’m seeing a trend here…)