Deep or Wide Or Somewhere Inbetween?

At one time it was possible for one person to know most of what was worth knowing. An education consisted of first learning to read, then reading a small core collection of books. That was it. You were now a learned person. Let’s be honest, you were a learned man. Women were not generally taught to read or allowed access to the precious hand written books.

Then, the printing press was invented and books became cheaper and much more plentiful. The subjects that were studied and written about also became more diverse. But a reasonably fast reader could still manage to stay abreast of most of the new discoveries that were added to the corpus of knowledge. There were even a few women, mostly wives and daughters of wealthy men, who were allowed to read and become knowledgeable of the world, so long as it didn’t interfere with their duties of bearing children and keeping house.

At some point it became increasingly difficult to read widely in all the domains of study or for that matter to be an expert in more than a narrow field of study. When that happened, a great oscillation began in institutes of higher learning. For a while they would emphasize a broad general curriculum for undergraduate students. Then the pendulum would swing the other way and undergraduates would be encouraged to dive deep into an area of specialization, give general education a lick and a promise. After a while, seeing the error of their ways, the educators would shift the emphasis back to a well rounded undergraduate education and the cycle would start all over again.

The ideal actually lies somewhere in the middle, neither too broad nor too deep. The student will discover what they are interested in and dive deep into it soon enough. It is good to give them a broad selection of intellectual tools with which to attack any subject. That is not to say that an undergraduate should not pursue the in depth study of a particular subject, just that it should not be done at the expense of a broad, generalized education.

Alas, I matriculated at a time that emphasized specialization. I have a lot of course work in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics. I have virtually nothing in history and the humanities. I have made up for it to some extent with personal reading but by the time you find yourself working at a full time job, there is not nearly enough time for personal study. Especially not when there are a host of novels that you want to read in addition to the various non-fiction topics. And it is assumed that you have to stay abreast of your area of specialization.

Better to lay a broad foundation in college than to try to fill in the gaps in your general educations later in life.


Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.