A wide-ranging review of research … rocked psychology because it showed experience simply did not create skill in a wide range of real-world scenarios, from college administrators assessing student potential to psychiatrists predicting patient performance to human resources professionals deciding who will succeed in job training. In those domains, which involved human behavior and where patterns did not clearly repeat, repetition did not cause learning. Chess, golf, and firefighting are exceptions, not the rule. …
Happy to read you found the book frustrating in the same ways I did!
As someone early in their career I found myself unable to make the points actionable in my own life. I could make a very long list of stuff I'd like to spend a year pursuing. While all provide range, not all range is equal. Obviously learning the trombone will help me less with behavioral economics than learning macro economics will.
So how do I prioritize what is good range and what is bad? It seems like he'd argue it is that it's impossible to predict but that's a very unsatisfying answer.
in the 3 examples in the quote (college administrators,psychiatrists and HR) there are no incentives to learn from experience since failure or success have no personal consequences.
80k hours has and still does recommend people try as varied jobs as they can get. Hard to put in practice though. It's more work and scarier and lower paying to range...
I think one should generalize to find something you are you are relatively good at and there is demand for then you should specialize in that. That is try a lot of stuff early and then specialize what it looks like you will be most successful at.
Root-Bernstein has written about major scientists (like Pasteur) who made discoveries by first specializing, then taking on practical problems somewhat outside their speciality.
Reminds me of a discussion on Breadth First Learning I once hadhttp://wiki.c2.com/?Breadth...The problem being that the knowledge space appears relatively flat.
I think it works in the other order, too - first specialize enough to gain some prestige in a field, then range away from that in order to bring in new ideas and viewpoints.
Happy to read you found the book frustrating in the same ways I did!
As someone early in their career I found myself unable to make the points actionable in my own life. I could make a very long list of stuff I'd like to spend a year pursuing. While all provide range, not all range is equal. Obviously learning the trombone will help me less with behavioral economics than learning macro economics will.
So how do I prioritize what is good range and what is bad? It seems like he'd argue it is that it's impossible to predict but that's a very unsatisfying answer.
in the 3 examples in the quote (college administrators,psychiatrists and HR) there are no incentives to learn from experience since failure or success have no personal consequences.
80k hours has and still does recommend people try as varied jobs as they can get. Hard to put in practice though. It's more work and scarier and lower paying to range...
I think one should generalize to find something you are you are relatively good at and there is demand for then you should specialize in that. That is try a lot of stuff early and then specialize what it looks like you will be most successful at.
Root-Bernstein has written about major scientists (like Pasteur) who made discoveries by first specializing, then taking on practical problems somewhat outside their speciality.
Reminds me of a discussion on Breadth First Learning I once hadhttp://wiki.c2.com/?Breadth...The problem being that the knowledge space appears relatively flat.
I think it works in the other order, too - first specialize enough to gain some prestige in a field, then range away from that in order to bring in new ideas and viewpoints.
Optimal stopping at 37% ?
thanks - I'll just need to find the book! :)
Uh, I'm citing the book that I'm reviewing. It contains many cites.
do you have citations for the assertion at the top? (experience need not lead to skill) TIA!