I’m not sure that “jack of all trades” is a helpful identity, given the known benefits of economic specialization. Remember the origin of that term: “Jack of all trades, and master of none.” It’s often more useful to be really, really good at one thing and trade for what you need in other areas.
It can often be useful to have a “T-shaped” expertise, though: some level of familiarity with a wide variety of topics, and deep expertise in one area. The cross bar of the T helps you when your existing expertise and skills are not enough—you know enough to find someone who can help you, or to know what new skills / knowledge you need to pick up. (Or, perhaps more importantly, you know what you don’t know.)
The “jack of all trades” identity motivates me to practice learning new things and overcome the aversion to being a beginner, which is a useful meta-skill. I have indeed observed a “master of none” effect, where I’m average at singing, dancing, rock climbing, etc, but not amazing at any of them. For practical purposes of sharing hobbies with friends and challenging myself, being at that level for each skill is quite sufficient.
I agree about the usefulness of T-shaped expertise, and this identity helps me form the crossbar of the T. In my field (statistics), having a broad knowledge of the basics for different methods and applications is especially helpful, and I think this is true of many other domains as well.
The “jack of all trades” identity may be a little idiosyncratic to me, though. It’s related to the “universal curiosity” one—I seem to have a terminal goal of building a complete model of the world and being able to do anything I think is worthwhile (this is an unachievable goal that I nevertheless try to inch towards).
I’m not sure that “jack of all trades” is a helpful identity, given the known benefits of economic specialization. Remember the origin of that term: “Jack of all trades, and master of none.” It’s often more useful to be really, really good at one thing and trade for what you need in other areas.
It can often be useful to have a “T-shaped” expertise, though: some level of familiarity with a wide variety of topics, and deep expertise in one area. The cross bar of the T helps you when your existing expertise and skills are not enough—you know enough to find someone who can help you, or to know what new skills / knowledge you need to pick up. (Or, perhaps more importantly, you know what you don’t know.)
The “jack of all trades” identity motivates me to practice learning new things and overcome the aversion to being a beginner, which is a useful meta-skill. I have indeed observed a “master of none” effect, where I’m average at singing, dancing, rock climbing, etc, but not amazing at any of them. For practical purposes of sharing hobbies with friends and challenging myself, being at that level for each skill is quite sufficient.
I agree about the usefulness of T-shaped expertise, and this identity helps me form the crossbar of the T. In my field (statistics), having a broad knowledge of the basics for different methods and applications is especially helpful, and I think this is true of many other domains as well.
The “jack of all trades” identity may be a little idiosyncratic to me, though. It’s related to the “universal curiosity” one—I seem to have a terminal goal of building a complete model of the world and being able to do anything I think is worthwhile (this is an unachievable goal that I nevertheless try to inch towards).