Generalist vs Specialist

Computer science courses are very different, in each university they generally have a different approach. There are reliable techniques and languages that are broadly used by everyone but that being said, each studio uses different techniques, software’s and languages. Some even develop their own software which is in-house and not publicly available.

I didn’t appreciate at first the range of tools and languages we had to use at when I first started university, but now I recognize why it’s important to have all of this knowledge. I was put off when I thought that there are literally people in the industry who are specifically hired for 1 software and 1 aspect of that software. For example Vray – Lighting artists. They are genuinely amazing at what they do, but it’s something so specific that it would be hard to fit this into a general curriculum.

I tweeted Autodesk 3Ds max experts at one of their last meet ups. 

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pinning-the-stack---3dsmax

The above link is to the live stream that was held, the event will be public in a couple weeks I guess, but for now this is the general link to find it.

The question tweeted was

“Would you recommend becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none? Generalist vs Specialist when breaking into the field.”

All of the experts in the stream had a great answer for me, it was their own opinions obviously, but they recommended that a generalist was better to break into the field. One of the points they made is that if you are looking for a job and no one is looking for exactly what you specialise in, then you’re going to struggle in your career to start with. Yet if you’re a generalist, then you’d be happy jumping into a lot of projects and are willing to learn new things. Plus a great knowledge of the software’s will always help. 

One of my inspirations in the 3D field Joe Gunn is speaking in the video above. He and others brush upon generalist vs specialist and mention that if you’ve just finished university or studying then if you class yourself that anything other than a generalist people won’t take you seriously. I know this blog is becoming rather specific, but it’s transferable with most courses in computer science. Although you may have a preferred language and thing to do, you should also try and learn an array of things to give you a better general overview of the field.