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Generalist or Specialist

By FrauTechon 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 careerlearning 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 andrelated 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


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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 specificthing, 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 reallygood 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 isa 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


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 moreof the higher level fun stuff.

So who are those people designing ICs? Art history majors?

bill


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 afield 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 nothave 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.

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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.

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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 isnot 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 timesleading 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

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