Which is better: knowing a lot about a little or knowing a little about a lot?

Jack of all trades and master of ONE. Here we have the perfect description of the most desirable balance concerning the acquisition of knowledge and skills as it relates to life, the universe, and everything (couldn't resist). It is good to know a little about a lot of things.It is better to know a lot about a lot of things.

It is best to know a lot about a lot of things, but be a MASTER of at least one thing. The thing that you choose to master, or the thing that chooses you, by captivating your imagination to the point of obsession, is the thing for which you develop a burning passion, and could not do without. What is it in your life, above all other things, that you could not do without?

That is your passion. Master it! If you have not yet found it yet, or it has not yet found you, keep searching, while gaining knowledge and skills in other areas.

My father used to tell me that everything you learn in this life will come in useful again later on. The value of learning about a lot of things is fairly obvious to most thoughtful individuals, it is something you will not regret. Determining those things which you will regret and avoiding them is an important component of a sound decision making process.

Allowing yourself to become an intellectual couch potato (with or without the optional ending "'e"), is something that you will very likely regret later in your life, perhaps when it is too late. While you are unlikely to become a famous musician, you may learn to strum and sing well enough to lead the old gang in a chorus of "Rocky Mountain gh" around the campfire, enriching everyone's experience, or perhaps you might amuse the crowd at Karaoke night with your version of "Desperado". More seriously, you may well need your "minor" skills and knowledge to keep body and soul together, to put food on the table for yourself and your family.

Masters are in as great demand today as ever. In an age when many people unquestioningly accept Wikipedia and Google search results as authoritative and reputable sources of information, we are in desperate need of individuals with actual real world knowledge and skills, people who are tops in their field.It has been said that you can learn 80% of what you need to know to become competent in about 20% of the time that it takes to become a master in a field. It takes an additional 80% of time and effort to gain that last 20% of the knowledge and skill that makes you an expert, or a master.

That last 20% will make you employable for the rest of your URL3 may even benefit the world, as the major breakthroughs and advancements don't come from the folks who think 80% is good enough. Strive for excellence. Find your passion and develop it.

When my son was six months old and had to have surgery, I was frightened. He was so small. The doctor was a specialist, a man in his sixties.

He shook my hand with a firm, unwavering grip, looked me straight in the eye, and said, Mr. Clore, you have nothing to worry about, I've done thousands of these procedures, I do them every day, and there are few doctors who can do as well. Come to find out, he was in his last year before retirement, and he had DEVELOPED the procedure he was using, it was NAMED after him. He had spent his entire life specializing in this surgery and traveling the world to show others how to do it.

And here he was in a clinic for folks with little money, basically donating his great talent and skill. The world needs more Masters, more specialists. Generalists are nice, I don't suppose it takes a master to prescribe amoxicillan for my ear infection, but where would we be without the experts?

Be a Jack of all Trades, but if you have the ability, Master One.

Unless your two examples are kept under a glass jar in a stagnant state, I would prefer to know a little about a lot. Keep in mind that both examples would change (some more awkwardly than others) over time. You could also see these opposing choices as 'book smart' or 'street smart'.

I had a friend growing up that lived on my block. She was not book smart. She couldn't find New York on a map of the United States.

She actually pointed her finger at Los Angeles and said New York, but she could survive on the streets. When we were in our teens, I was book smart, but wouldn't survive one night on my own. In my twenties, I worked at a large Laboratory Company doing sales and marketing of pipette tips.

I met a guy that I liked who worked in the labs. He had a Masters in Microbiology and Organic Chemistry. My crush soon faded when I realized that we couldn't talk about most current events since his world revolved around his lab.

I soon felt sorry for him and wished I could show him a life beyond his four walls. Again... I would choose to know a little about a lot. Why?

Because there was a time in my life when that was true. You can't have either of these scenarios without adding life and experience to the mixture. If I had chosen the latter... it would take me much longer to get my bearings and I probably wouldn't hit the ground running.

Within the scope of one's career, it may seem important, even a necessity, to be fully versed in one's topic of expertise, perhaps to the exclusion of all else. But in practical application, it is vital to also have a well rounded base of knowledge. All science includes some aspect of intuition (even if it is only in setting the initial parameter of a given experiment).

Intuition is the subconscious analyzing and application of all life experience. The more you experience (assimilate into the subconscious), the more perceptive you are, even in your singular area of expertise. A singular, or a few areas of expertise cannot provide broad enough knowledge or wisdom to allow one to utilize adequate intuition to advance even further in that expertise.At some point, they will no longer be able to progress, because while they may be able to absorb more in the area of expertise, they will not be able to apply it.

They will lack the intuitive/wisdom framework within which to conceptualize application. In every day living, it's pretty black and white that you have to know a little bit about a lot of things. If you don't get toilet trained - well, you see my point here.

If you don't learn to pay bills, big problem. If you don't know how traffic signals work, you get hurt (or worse). Life requires that we all have at least some knowledge about many, many things.

At these times, knowing a little about a lot is infinitely better. :-).

I think a balanced mixture is good. I'm an information junkie. I love to learn all sorts of things about all sorts of stuff.

Wikipedia is my favorite playground. I don't retain everything I learn, but I love learning it nevertheless. I'm relatively knowledgeable about some subjects, very knowledgeable about a very few, and know this and that about others.

Sometimes I don't know how knowledgeable I am until someone starts asking questions. I cannot stand intellectual snobs, who seem to know everything about everything, and love to call you on it if you aren't as learned on it as they are. "I don't know" isn't in their vocabulary.

On the flip side, I don't like people who cannot discuss but one or two subjects such as an ex I had who could not have even a semi-intelligent conversation on anything but movies or sports (further narrowed down to hockey, football and golf). I don't understand how people can live such narrow existences but each to their own.

Generalizing vs. Specializing I don't think a division actually exists between these concepts. There is no better. They are the same process applied differently.

This may only be semantics but to specialize in a field one has to become a generalist in things unopened from a surface point of view. If one is a generalist one becomes an expert generalist or specializes in gleaning surface knowledge from a vast array of fields.

The question, more succinctly, can be stated as: is it better to be a generalist or a specialist. The answer is... you probably guessed it... Neither. If you need information about a topic outside the specialist's specialty, the specialist would be useless.

If you need detailed information about any topic, the generalist would not be too much help. What you need is a combination of the two. This is why in all major projects there is a team, working together, each providing their part of the puzzle.

Taking an aerospace project as an example, you will have discipline engineers such as mechanical, thermal, electrical, software, guidance/navigation, control/data-handling, etc. You will also have more general engineers such as systems, project manager, integration&testing, quality control, etc. Even in a specific discipline, if needed, you will find e.g. Mechanical designer, mechanical analyst, etc. It is a rare individual who has a great deal of in-depth knowledge of one discipline, along with a wide and almost as deep knowledge of related disciplines, with a very wide and general knowledge in many unrelated fields. Extraordinary individuals are true renaissance men (or women) who are specialists in multiple fields. I had once the privilege of taking a class from a professor who had an M.D. , plus PhDs in math, physics, biology, philosophy, theology, and literature.

However, I don't believe I've heard of anyone else in recent history with similar breadth of knowledge (unless you go back to such historical figures as Leonardo DaVinci).

I would say knowing a little about a lot. It is better when, lets say building a boat to know about hydrodynamics and buoyancy rather than just knowing allot about hydrodynamics : ) , and anyway if you really needed to know more about something you could always find out more about it.

First, it's always better to knowing a lot about everything but that's not a choice in life. We can't possibly have everything we want. So, which is better?

I think it's better to know a little about a lot than to know a lot about a little. While, in life you really need to know a lot about something to get a good job. Get higher pay and do your job well.

But if you only focus to know a lot about just one thing and when you encounter thing or places in life that does not required the knowledge you know, you will become clueless. If you know a little about a lot. When you encounter problems, you know where to go to get answer without being clueless.

You can cope with a lot more things in life. Even when you meet new people. It's great that you may be an expert in one thing and can explain in full details about it but when other people don't know much about it.

The topics becomes boring. If you know a little about everything, you will always be able to engage in conversation they like.

I really like owl's response. In terms of survival, if you only know a lot about one thing, you will be SOL, because Poli-Sci, isn’t going to help you butcher a deer. But if you know a little about a lot of topics, AND can learn how to fill in the blanks, that would be the ideal candidate, for survival anyways, think Bear Grylls, he knows just about everything about survival.

One may consider him to be a specialist in survival though. I do agree with most posters though. In every day life you need a couple of 'specialists' around, even if they aren't experts.

Interesting topic... From personal experience, I find that knowing a little about a lot of things can be very helpful in generally living one's life; but not having a recognized knowledge or expertise in a particular area has really damaged things for me such as earning potential, career depth, what options are open to me, etc. I'm not someone who has an absolutely superficial knowledge of a lot of things (or pretends to). I have more of a light, but genuinely useful knowledge of a variety of topics. If we are talking about knowing "a little about a lot" as being a very superficial knowledge of everything, I'd have to say that knowing a lot about a little has got to be better.

At a certain level of superficiality, knowing "a little about a lot" becomes pretty useless. Having experienced the limitations of not having a degree, I would have to say that knowing a lot about a little seems to have much more application in a huge number of career options, and the lack of this is a real roadblock. I would think that knowing a little about a lot might have more application in some kinds of entrepreneurial endeavors or self-employment.

I have to say that the lifestyle consequences of my not knowing "a lot about a little" has given me opportunities to explore a bigger variety of things as deeply as I want to, when I want to, but never to the degree of depth of a professional. It's helped me to be able to concentrate on whatever problem I have at any time and find the answers, and be able to do so perhaps with a lower stress level coming from other sources at the same time.So I think it can be something that can be supportive of living a happy and balanced life. But I don't think this is necessarily something that is not available to those who also know "a lot about a little".

I feel like knowing "a lot about a little" tends to be an opportunity that if you miss the first time, is hard to get back again... but the "vice versa" option is probably still much more open to people who previously have concentrated all their knowledge in one area. I think that professionals or experts can always choose to take the time to learn a little about a lot of things, but not having a degree or field of expertise in the first place, early in life, can often close a lot of doors and prevent you from having this option later on.

For example, in the modern world, it is pretty difficult to make a good living if you only know a little bit about a lot of different things, and are not highly knowledgeable in a specialized field. Someone that has five years C# . NET experience earns a lot more than someone that has five years experience spread across 20 different programming languages.

And someone that has five years of disparate programming experience earns a lot more than someone that has spent five years working in 20 different unrelated jobs.So for making money, knowing a lot about one thing is generally preferable. On the other hand, if you spent night and day being the world's best C# programmer, knowing nothing about music, books, current affairs etc you might earn more but miss out on a lot of other things that life has to offer, like fun, friendship and feeling that you make a difference in the world. Another issue worth bearing in mind is that if you are highly specialized, you can be vulnerable to a change in the demand for your specialism.

Changes in technology or law or society could make everything you've learned redundant in a short space of time. I am not going to presume to say what is best for everyone. Luckily in reality there are not such stark choices.

People have a few things about which they know a lot, and then concentric circles of knowledge around those things in which they know a fair bit, then a little bit, then next to nothing as you go outwards. In consulting there is an expression, "the T-shaped consultant". What that means is you have one area of great expertise - the vertical stroke of the T - and that is surrounded by a breadth of knowledge of related fields, so you understand how your specialism fits into the bigger picture.

Most people benefit from having a bunch of several different T-shaped areas of knowledge, rather than being either 100% focused on one narrow specialism, or knowing a lot but having no depth of knowledge anywhere. Some further food for thought on these issues... waseem.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/mc....

Knowing a little about a lot as you can give you point of view about many topics. That is better, You can be included in teh conversation.

Knowing a lot about a little versus knowing a little about a lot I know a lot about very few topics, and I know a little about lots of topics. The topics that I know a lot about --- mostly related to the study of Computer Science and computer programming --- I've learned through years of academic studies, work experience, hobby projects, book reading, and intellectually stimulating and fun discussions with people who are experts in the field. The topics that I know very little about --- e.g. , the 80/20 rule, the Whorfian hypothesis, the Bystander Effect --- I've learned through reading online news articles, blogs, Wikipedia, watching YouTube videos, and making small-talk with friends and acquaintances at parties and dinners.

I've learned that it's fairly easy to appear knowledgeable by knowing a little about lots of topics, but to actually be knowledgeable, one must, well, know a lot about something (duh). So why is it easier to appear knowledgeable by sharing superficial sound bites and buzzwords that you read online rather than by discussing select topics in-depth? Two reasons: First, most people with whom you casually interact don't know much about your area of expertise, so they have neither the ability to comprehend nor the interest in learning about topics that you know in-depth.

There is a far greater chance that your audience (e.g. , family members, friends, acquaintances you meet at a dinner party) will understand a one-sentence summary of index funds than your grimy experiences dealing with different models of inheritance in the implementation of Smalltalk vs. C++. Second, memes (another buzzword! ) that have proliferated through the popular media (newspapers, magazines, blogs) have done so precisely because they are somewhat interesting, easy to comprehend, and (most importantly) easy to remember and pass along to others.

I suspect that most reasonably-educated people are like me in that they know a lot about very few topics and know a little about lots of topics. The difference between people lies in how eager they are to share their tidbits of superficial knowledge: Some jump on every opportunity to relate the conversation at hand to the latest newsworthy buzz they just learned from the Internet (ohhh you ordered the fish, did you know that USA Today had a recent article about how eating fish is bad for your sperm count? ).

Others refrain from making as many "did you know?" interjections and only open their mouths when they understand the topic at slightly more depth. The former group might appear to be more knowledgeable, since they seem to have something decently-interesting to say about lots of topics, while the latter group might appear less knowledgeable since they simply don't speak up as much. However, it might be the case that people in the former ('loud-mouthed') group simply have a lower threshold for speaking up, while people in the latter group don't feel as comfortable talking unless they can back up their statements with more evidence.

Knowing a lot about a lot > knowing a lot about a little > knowing a little about lot.

In my life I've learned a great deal about many things, but I don't know a whole lot about maybe more than one or two things. I started out learning a little about everything until I found some things that I found interesting. I'm a writer and this seemed like the best coarse of action for me.

I do believe that what a person knows about marks what they will do with their career and I like the idea of everyone learning a little bit about everything to help them find the things they like or what they want to do with their life. Also knowing a little bit about everything helps when you find yourself around people who know nothing about what you know most. It can be a great ice breaker just being able to have a slight conversation with someone on what they know or like.

There is a third category too! People who know a lot about almost every topic, if not everything. I would prefer to be one of them.

These people have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge & information. They are called "Jack of All Trades". I have practically seen such people and many people seek their help/guidance/advise in need.

I would like to be one of them. Thanks.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.