Expertise... because I'll want something to read later after moving house all day.

[ewt]

What do you consider yourself an expert at? Why?

Studies show that most world-class experts in any field have spent at least 10000 hours working on the related skills. No, I don't have a citation to hand... What have you spent 10000 hours or more learning or practising? That's 3 hours a day for 10 years.

How much overlap is there between these categories?

Do you consider yourself a specialist or a generalist? Why?

Is expertise absolute or relative?

Comments

[403.livejournal.com]

Um... I'm an expert student? (Or at least, it's been my primary occupation for the past 18 years..) Being a skilled Learner of Stuff is a huge advantage in most fields - sometimes more important than prior work experience.

Aside from that, I'd probably have to say that I was an expert in literature in general, and science fiction in particular. Not so much writing about it as reading it, though. (This one also exceeds the 3h/day over ten years criteria.)

I consider myself a generalist because there's so much of the world to study, and I'm interested in most of it. If I expected to have a long enough lifespan for it to be practical, I'd study everything and just call myself a "natural scientist" like they did before the knowledge explosion.

Expertise is highly contextual. It's relative to the knowledge and skills of the people you're working with, and the goal you're trying to achieve.