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

[yady.livejournal.com]

I don't consider myself an expert on anything. I consider myself a good cook, but not an expert, and in certain environments I am the one, or one of those, who know(s) most about certain topics (like at school, I'm one of the most computer-savvy people, and I know more than most teachers about AD(H)D and related things. Actually, that brings me to one thing I *am* an expert at: 'being me'. No-one knows better what it's like to be me than I do, and no-one knows better how to deal with the peculiarities that come with being me. But I suppose that goes for everyone.

I suppose I have spent 10000 hours on things related to math and computer science. I am by *no* means an expert on that, though - there are always many people fairly close by who know more about it and/or are better at it.

I have no clue whether I am a specialist or a generalist. A bit of both, probably.

If expertise is relative, then I do classify as an expert in some situations. Defining 'expert' as 'the person available who knows most/can do it best' with regard to a topic (which would make it relative) makes more sense to me than defining it in terms of a number of hours spent, since the time spent may be much more effective for one person than for another, and perhaps in some fields there isn't enough to know to spend that many hours on before you know 'everything' (so even the most knowledgeable person in the world might not qualify as an expert). So, I am leaning towards relative.